



Jft®««M> 




Pass , BV 4. 

Book a.1 A 5 5 

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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



C^e <0ate beautiful 



DR. J. R. MILLER'S BOOKS 



A Heart Garden 
Bethlehem to Olivet 
Building of Character 
Come ye Apart 
Dr. Miller's Year Book 
Evening Thoughts 
Every Day of Life 
Finding the Way 
For the Best Things 
Gate Beautiful 
Glimpses through Life's 

Windows 
Go Forward 
Golden Gate of Prayer 
Hidden Life 



Joy of Service 
Lesson of Love 
Making the Most of Life 
Ministry of Comfort 
Morning Thoughts 
Personal Friendships of 

Jesus 
Silent Times 
Story of a Busy Life 
Strength and Beauty 
Things to Live for 
Upper Currents 
When the Song Begins 
Wider Life 
Young People's Problems 



BOOKLETS 



Beauty of Kindness 
Blessing of Cheerfulness 
By the Still Waters 
Christmas Making 
Cure for Care 
Face of the Master 
Gentle Heart 
Girls; Faults and Ideals 
Glimpses of the Heavenly 

Life 
How? When? Where? 
In Perfect Peace 
Inner Life 
Loving my Neighbor 



Marriage Altar 
Mary of Bethany 
Master's Friendships 
Secret of Gladness 
Secrets of Happy Home 

Life 
Summer Gathering 
To-day and To-morrow 
Transfigured Life 
Turning Northward 
Unto the Hills 
Young Men; Faults and 

Ideals 



THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY 



<©ate beautiful 



BY 

J. R. MILLER 

SILENT TIMES," "UPPE 
MAKING THE MOST OF LIFE," ETC. 




jHeto iorft 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 
PUBLISHERS 



^1 *p\ 



©SEP / 1909 

Ci. a 2 33 

AUa 31 1909 



Copyright, 1909, by Thomas Y. Crowell $ Co. 



Published, September, 1909 



THE REASON WHY 



1 HESE chapters treat of some of the simple, 
practical things of daily life. Nearly all of 
them have been written in answer to actual ques- 
tions from persons either in perplexity or striv- 
ing after better things in Christian Life. Life's 
questions are the same everywhere, and if these 
answers prove helpful to any the book will be 
worth while. 

J. R. M. 



Philadelphia, U, S. A. 



TITLES OF CHAPTERS 



I. The Gate Beautiful Page 3 

II. The Call to Praise 19 

III. The Desires of Thy Heart 33 

IV. Called to Be Saints 47 
V. Guarding Our Thoughts 63 

VI. Points of Departure 77 

VII. Building Again the Home Nest 91 

VIII. ''Behold, Thy Mother" 105 

IX. What God Thinks of Us 119 

X. Hating One's Life 133 

XI. The Making of Men 147 

XII. Christian Manliness 161 

XIII. Misunderstood 175 

XIV. Service Declined 189 
XV. How Can We Know? 203 

XVI. Does God Care? 219 

XVII. Thou Shalt Know Hereafter 233 

XVIII. The Practice of Immortality 247 

XIX. Looking Unto the Hills 261 

XX. No Miracle, But Power 275 

XXI. The Work of the Lord 289 



C^e d&ate Beautiful 



[i] 



"Into the secret chamber of my heart, 
Wherein no mortal enters, Lord, come thou 
And make thy dwelling place ere day depart! 

"0 thou who didst create the human heart, 
Didst thou not make one sure place for thyself ? 
It is high sanctuary where thou art!" 



[2] 



CHAPTER .FIRST 



C^e d5ate beautiful 




HE Gate Beautiful in the 
temple cannot certainly be 
identified. We know it was 
very costly, made probably 
of Corinthian brass and 
in the highest style of art. 
Everything about the temple was beautiful, 
and this gate was probably one of the most 
splendid ornaments of the house. God loves 
beauty. If he did not, he would not have 
made this world so full of lovely things. 
Everywhere we go we see beauty. The 
blind, whose eyes are closed, are sore losers 
in their great deprivation. 
The Gate Beautiful has many interesting 
suggestions for our thought. It was the 
gate into the temple of God. Everything 
about God's worship should be beautiful. 
God himself is beautiful. When Charles 
Kingsley was dying, his daughter saw his 

m 



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lips moving, and bending her ear close to 
him, heard him say, " How beautiful God 
is ! " Some people think of God as terrible, 
as a being who is angry, vengeful, not a 
gentle friend, but a stern, severe judge. 
They think of him with fear. One who 
thinks of God in this way wrote, " I love 
Jesus Christ, but I cannot love God." Jesus 
was beautiful — gentle, compassionate, lov- 
ing, pitiful. The children loved him and 
nestled in his arms. None were afraid of him. 
But God is the same. Jesus said, " He that 
hath seen me hath seen the Father." Jesus 
was the human expression of God. It is 
God's beauty that we see in the face of Jesus 
Christ. 

Since God is beautiful, we should make his 
house beautiful. When David had built for 
himself a palace of cedar, his heart smote 
him that while he had such a fine dwelling for 
himself, God was living in a weather-beaten 
tent. He resolved to build a glorious temple 
for God. An English writer says, " It is ever 
a fatal sign when men permit the house of 

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God to be meaner than their own." We 
should make our churches beautiful in every 
line and feature. We snould keep them clean, 
bright, attractive. It is dishonoring to God 
to let his house fall into decay, to allow it to 
have broken windows, stained walls, unswept 
floors, faded carpets, tawdry furniture. The 
Beautiful Gate should always open into a 
beautiful sanctuary. God will meet his people 
in a tent, in a hall, in a barn, in the rudest 
place, in the open field, if that is the best they 
can do ; but we should always prepare for the 
meeting place with him the most beautiful 
temple we can provide. 

The worship of God should be beautiful. In 
one of the Psalms the poet speaks of " the 
beauty of holiness." When we enter at the 
Gate Beautiful into the Lord's house, our be- 
havior should be beautiful, and every part 
of the service we render should be in keep- 
ing with the sanctity of the place. We are in 
the presence of Almighty God. In Isaiah's 
wonderful vision the prophet saw the sera- 
phim, each with six wings. With two of their 

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wings they covered their faces — reverence ; 
they were not worthy even to look upon the 
divine splendor. With two they covered their 
feet — humility; they would hide their unfit- 
ness in God's presence. Then with two they 
did fly — service; going instantly wherever 
they were sent. We should be reverent and 
humble and obedient before God. 
We need often to remind ourselves of this 
duty of reverence for God's house, " lest we 
forget." We should have the same spirit in 
all religious meetings, as well as in formal 
church services. One of the Hebrew prophets 
has this word to which we should always 
listen when we enter any room where God is 
being worshiped : " The Lord is in his holy 
temple: let all the earth keep silence before 
him." Every part of our worship should be 
rendered to God. Jenny Lind, when asked 
the secret of her wonderful power in song, 
swaying thousands, answered, " I sing to 
God." When we sing in worship, we should 
sing to God. When prayer is offered, we 
should be sincere — we are talking to God. 

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" Worship the Lord in the beauty of holi- 
ness." " Keep thy foot when thou goest to 
the house of God." 

The Gate Beautiful, through which we enter 
into the temple, suggests that we should 
make our Christian lives beautiful. God is 
beautiful. Holiness is beautiful. It is not 
enough that we worship in a beautiful house, 
and that our worship shall be orderly, de- 
vout, reverent. Our character also must be 
beautiful. Some of the ancient Christian fa- 
thers taught that in his personal appearance 
Jesus was not lovely. They seem to have 
interpreted a word in Isaiah to mean this: 
u His visage was so marred more than any 
man, and his form more than the sons of 
men." They said that his face was repulsive. 
" Base of aspect," said one. " His body de- 
void even of human loveliness," said another. 
But this was not true. Jesus was beautiful. 
The heart makes the face, and his heart was 
full of all beautiful qualities. We are to be 
like Christ, not in our faces, but in our lives. 
He was gracious, and we are to be gracious. 

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He loved, and we are to love. St. Paul, in 
one of his great pictures of worthy Chris- 
tian life, names " whatsoever things are 
lovely " as part of his description of a true 
life. Only lovely things should be in our life. 
The beauty of Christ should be upon us. 
One wljo bears Christ's name and is not 
beautiful in his spirit, is dishonoring the 
Master. 

In St. Paul's great chapter about love, he 
mentions some qualities that are not part 
of love. Love is not provoked — bad tem- 
per is not beautiful. You do not admire a 
man who flies into a passion of anger at 
the slightest provocation. Love doth not 
behave itself unseemly — that is, not unbeau- 
tifully. Selfishness is not beautiful, greed is 
not, irritability is not, anger is not, dishon- 
esty and falsehood are not. We admire the 
man or the woman who bears insults pa- 
tiently, quietly, meekly, who, when reviled, 
reviles not again, who overcomes evil with 
good. 

The Beatitudes show lines and traits of 

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beauty. The Beautiful Gate opens for us to- 
day to all beautiful things in life, in disposi- 
tion, in conduct, in behavior, in character. 
George Macdonald says, " I should like to 
know a man who just minded his duty and 
troubled himself about nothing; who did his 
own work and did not interfere with God's. 
How nobly he would work — working not for 
a reward, but because it was the will of God ! 
How happily he would take his food and 
clothing, receiving them as gifts of God! 
What peace would be his ! What a sober 
gaiety ! How hearty and infectious his laugh- 
ter ! What a friend he would be ! How sweet 
his sympathy! And his mind would be so 
clear he would understand everything. His 
eye being single, his whole body would be 
full of light. No fear of his ever doing a 
mean thing — he would die in a ditch, rather. 
It is fear of want that makes men do mean 
things." 

The life of faith is always beautiful — unbe- 
lief is never beautiful. Peace is beautiful — 
unrest, distraction, anxiety, fret, worry, dis- 

[9]* 



C&e (Kate OBeawttful 



content, are unlovely. We should set for 
ourselves the ideal of beauty for every act, 
every word, every disposition, every feeling 
and thought of our lives. 
At the Beautiful Gate Peter and John saw 
a beggar. For years this man had been 
brought every morning by his friends to this 
place, and left there all day to ply his task. 
No doubt he was there when Jesus used to 
pass and repass, entering and leaving the 
temple. Perhaps he had reached out his hand 
ofttimes and may have received alms from 
him. But not having faith to ask for heal- 
ing, he had remained unhealed all the while. 
So year after year multitudes of people lie 
unblessed and unhealed about the very gates 
of God's sanctuary, while the Healer is con- 
tinually passing. It is not enough to live 
near a church, even close to a church door. 
Some one tells of a sexton who has cared for 
one church more than thirty years, and yet is 
not a Christian. 

The beggar saw Peter and John coming up 
to the church door. He did not know who 

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they were, but he reached out his hand for 
alms. He expected to get a little money. He 
did not know they were able to do some- 
thing far better for him than drop a coin 
into his hand. So always in our prayers we 
ask for little things, bits of coin or bread, 
or some mere earthly thing, not knowing, 
not realizing that there are infinitely better 
things we might ask for and get. We are 
fooled by life's illusions. The things we think 
are the most important are really the least im- 
portant. We kneel in the morning and ask 
for daily bread, for little things — pleasure, 
comfort, health, a day of success — these are 
good enough things in their way, but think of 
the things we might ask for and get, when it 
is God at whose feet we are bowing. 
Many people pay no heed to beggars, do not 
even deign to give them a kindly look or a 
gracious word. How do we know who this 
beggar may be? At least we are sure that he 
is a child of God, though perhaps a prodigal 
child. The beggar that sits by the wayside 
and holds out his hand to you may meet you 

[in ' 



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in heaven some day, wearing white gar- 
ments. At least you know what Jesus said, 
" I was hungry, and ye did not give me to 
eat ; I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink ; 
I was a stranger, and ye took me not in. 
. . . Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of 
these least, ye did it not unto me." 
Notice the fine courtesy which Peter shows to 
this poor beggar at the Gate Beautiful. We 
need not always give money to beggars — 
Peter gave no money to this man. Neverthe- 
less he did not ignore him, did not pass him 
by with contempt. Peter was not too fine a 
gentleman to stop and have a little talk with 
the beggar. He did not forget that he, too, 
was a man, a gentleman, with a human heart 
under his rags, a heart that would be hurt 
by a rough word, by a discourtesy. Peter's 
treatment of this beggar was very beautiful. 
It showed nobility that was very Christlike. 
We should treat even a beggar as we shall 
wish we had done if we learn some day that 
he was an angel in disguise, or Jesus him- 
self. 

[12] 



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Peter's way of helping was also beautiful. 
" Look on us," he said kindly. The beggar 
began to hope for money. Instead, however, 
of giving a coin, Peter said, " I do not have 
•any silver or gold." Yet he did not pass the 
beggar by because he could not give him 
the money he wanted. He said, " What I 
have, that give I thee." Then he said to the 
lame man, " In the name of Jesus Christ of 
Nazareth, walk." 

There are many people who cannot give 
money even to those who need money help ; 
yet they need not conclude that they can do 
nothing at all. Indeed, money is usually the 
poorest alms we can give. Kind words are 
better, love is better. So far as we know, 
Jesus never gave anyone money, yet there 
never was such a giver as he. He gave love, 
he gave sympathy, he gave thought. It is 
not money people usually need most, even 
when they think nothing else will do. What 
they really need is sympathy, cheer, encour- 
agement. In one of the Psalms is the strik- 
ing expression, " Blessed is he that consid- 

[13] 



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ereth the poor." It is not, " Blessed is he 
that giveth to," but " he that considereth 
the poor." Many who give largely to char- 
ity never consider the poor, never give them 
a moment's thought. They fling the beggar 
a coin, but they have no interest in him, not 
a particle of sympathy with him. To con- 
sider is to think about, to take up the case 
and ask what it is best to do for the person. 
To consider the poor is to become their 
friend, to love them, to make plans for their 
good. 

What did Peter do for this lame man? He 
bade him to walk. So the man stood up and 
walked away. If Peter had given him a coin, 
it would only have helped him along a little 
farther as a beggar. But when he healed 
him, the man did not need to be helped any 
more. He was now able to take care of him- 
self. Was that not a truer, better, wiser, 
kindlier way to help him than to have left 
him helpless, giving him only a little tem- 
porary relief? 

There is something else that Peter did. He 

[14] 



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gave the man his hand. The human is needed 
as well as the divine. It is only a pitiful 
mockery to pray for one who needs help, 
and then do nothing for him. We must take 
him by the hand and help him. 



[15] 



C^e Call to pvai$t 



[17] 



:i The truest words we ever speak 

Are words of cheer. 
Life has its shade, its valleys deep ; 
But round our feet the shadows creep, 

To prove the sunlight near. 
Between the hills those valleys sleep — 

The sun-crowned hills, 
And down their sides will those who seek 
With hopeful spirit, brave though meek, 

Find gently flowing rills. n 



[18] 



CHAPTER SECOND 



€^e Call to praise 




HERE are in the Bible 
many more calls to praise 
than to prayer. Prayer is 
continually urged. It is es- 
sential. It is the Christian's 
vital breath. The man who 
does not pray cuts himself off from the 
source of all good. A day without prayer is 
a day without protection, a day of peril. 
Prayer is essential. Yet praise would seem to 
be no less a duty than prayer. 
Everything that hath breath is commanded 
to praise God, and not only things animate, 
but things inanimate — " all deeps, fire and 
hail, snow and vapor; stormy wind, moun- 
tains and all hills; fruitful trees and all 
cedars." The poet in one of the Psalms calls 
upon all that is within him to praise God's 
name. He thinks of the powers and capaci- 
ties of his nature and would have them all 

[19] 



C^e (Bate I3eaiittfttl 



waked up to join in the song. He exhorts him- 
self also not to forget God's benefits. What 
are some of these? 

" Who forgiveth all thine iniquities ; 
Who healeth all thy diseases ; 
Who redeemeth thy life from destruction ; 
Who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and 
tender mercies " 

These are only a few of God's benefits. They 
are coming to us continually. Nothing but 
good ever comes to us. It would seem that 
there never could be anything but praise in 
our hearts. Yet listen on any day, the fairest 
day of the year, the day when the sun shines 
the brightest and the skies are bluest, to the 
complainings, the murmurings, of the people 
you meet. It seems that almost nothing goes 
well with them. The habit of discontent has 
grown so strong in them that they are never 
quite pleased or satisfied with anything. In 
the most perfect circumstances they always 
find some flaws. In the most lovely charac- 
ter they discover some lack or blemish. The 

[20] 



C^e Call to pvai$t 



trouble really is, however, in the persons 
themselves who complain and not in the 
providence that blesses their lives. If they 
were in heaven, and had the same disposi- 
tions they now have, they would find some- 
thing even there to fret them or irk them 
and would not be altogether happy. 
What such people need is not more agreeable 
circumstances, all things different to suit 
their tastes and whims, but a new heart, 
being born again with a contented mind, a 
praising, thanksgiving spirit. 
The fact is, there are a thousand beautiful 
things in any outlook on life we may have, 
to one unpleasant thing. We should be able 
easily to forget the one little thorn in such 
a mass of roses. " Forget not all his bene- 
fits," the lesson runs, but this is the very 
thing we do — we forget God's wonderful 
mercies, the countless blessings that flood our 
days with sunshine and strew our nights with 
stars. An hour's pain, even a moment's twinge 
of suffering, blots out the memory of a whole 
year of best health. 

[21] 



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There is a legend of two angels that come 
from heaven every morning and go on their 
rounds all day long. One is the angel of 
prayers ; the other the angel of thanksgiv- 
ings. Each carries a great basket. Soon the 
angel of requests has his basket filled to 
overflowing. Everybody pours into it great 
handfuls of requests. But when the day is 
ended the angel of thanksgivings has only 
two or three little contributions of gratitude 
in his basket. 

This is not a caricature. Most of us do more 
or less praying, but it is nearly all the un- 
loading of burdens, fears, wants, and clam- 
orous requests for favors, with only here and 
there a feeble word of thanks for blessings 
received. Some ingenious gatherer of statis- 
tics tells us that during a recent year thou- 
sands of letters from children, addressed to 
Santa Claus, reached the Dead Letter Office 
before Christmas, but that in the whole 
month after Christmas only one letter came 
addressed to Santa Claus, with a message of 
thanks. Ten lepers were cleansed, all receiv- 
es ] 



€^e Call to $ratee 



ing the same great blessing, but only one of 
the ten returned to thank the Healer. Where 
were the nine? 

We must confess that we are pitifully want- 
ing in gratitude. Thanksgivings languish on 
our lips. Some of us do little but complain. 
Nothing altogether pleases us. We have no 
eyes for the good things of divine love 
which really flood our lives. We ought to 
pray for a power of vision that will enable 
us to behold the beauties of this world, for 
a love that will show us the noble and worthy 
qualities in the people about us, and a faith 
that will help us to believe in the divine 
goodness in the events which seem to be most 
unkindly. 

The praising spirit is essential in him who 
would do his best work in any line of life. 
It is said that Leonardo da Vinci held a lyre 
in his hand while he painted. Music inspired 
his art. This was one of the secrets of his 
superb work as an artist — his heart was glad 
and praising. No one can do good work with 
a sad heart. You need not go with a grieving 

[23] ' 



C^e d&ate I3eautiful 



spirit to comfort one who is in trouble, for 
you can help him only with cheer. If you are 
in sorrow, another's grief will not comfort 
you. He who would come to you as an up- 
lifter, must have joy to bring to you. " The 
joy of the Lord is your strength," said 
Nehemiah to his people when he found them 
weeping, and exhorted them to a better life. 
They must dry their tears if they would at- 
tain anything noble and beautiful. 
It is always so. No life ever reached its best 
possibilities in sadness. The men who have 
done the noblest and worthiest things, who 
have achieved the most, whose work shines 
as beautiful and radiant in the world, car- 
ried a harp in their hands. They sang at their 
work. Pessimism has never done any lovely 
things ; only he who works with a song adds 
to the brightness and beauty of the world. 
Gloomy people are perverting their powers, 
growing thorns instead of roses. The joyless 
man is a misanthrope. He makes it harder 
for other people to live, makes them less 
strong to bear their burdens. He chills the 

[24] 



%X)t Call to pvai$z 



ardor he ought to kindle to a redder glow. He 
is a discourager and thus a hinderer of every 
man he meets. t 

On the other hand, he who sings as he works 
is a blessing to every man. He does better 
work himself, paints more beautiful pictures, 
sings sweeter songs, is a better teacher, a 
better lawyer, a better merchant, an infinitely 
better physician. No man should ever go into 
a sick room as a doctor who has not music in 
his heart. No man is ever fit to be a preacher 
who is not a joyous man, a praising man. 
Carlyle has a strong word on the value of 
singing at one's work : " Give us, oh, give us 
the man who sings at his work ! Be his occu- 
pation what it may, he is equal to any of 
those who follow the same pursuit in silent 
sullenness. He will do more in the same time 
— he will do it better — he will persevere 
longer. One is scarcely sensible to fatigue 
whilst he marches to music. The very stars 
are said to make harmony as they revolve in 
their spheres. Wondrous is the strength of 
cheerfulness ; altogether past calculation are 

[25] 



C^e (Batt iBtautiful 



its powers of endurance. Efforts to be per- 
manently useful, must be uniformly joyous 
— a spirit all sunshine — graceful from very 
gladness — beautiful because bright." Joy is 
a splendid inspirer. 

The emblem of Christian life is light, and 
light means joy, praise. There used to be 
people who thought that solemnity was an 
essential quality of religion. The man who 
smiled on Sunday desecrated the holy day. 
He who was glad-hearted in worship lacked 
reverence. There are some persons who would 
banish flowers from churches. But there is 
really no piety in long-facedness. Indeed 
one of the first things required in Christian 
life is joy. It is named as second among the 
fruits of the Spirit. Jesus said he would 
have his joy fulfilled in his followers. If you 
would become a beautiful Christian, you must 
be a joyous Christian. Joy is always lovely. 
It shines. It is fragrant. It makes the air 
brighter and sweeter. It is a wondrous in- 
spirer of life. You can do twice as much work 
when you are glad and praising as when you 

[26] 



c^e Call to pratee 



are gloomy and downcast; and you can do it 
twice as well. 

The other day a Christian woman told of 
starting out sad and heavy-hearted in the 
morning, with no song, no praise, not a 
thought of gladness in her heart. Every- 
thing dragged. There seemed nothing worth 
living for. Circumstances were distressing. 
There appeared only blackness before her 
eyes. Then suddenly, unexpectedly, some- 
thing happened which changed all the out- 
look. Light broke in upon the gloom. The 
friend said that if an angel of God had come 
into the dreadful tangle with light and song 
the effect could not have been more marvel- 
ous. It was joy that came, and the joy 
changed everything. The life was saved from 
despair. The clouds and shadows rolled away 
and the blue sky hung everywhere. The same 
miracle-story is told in a little poem from one 
of the magazines : 

" Going up the hill, I found it long. 
Until I met a merry song 

That kissed mine eyes to blind me. 
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C^e (Bate Beautiful 



It mocked at me, and turned and fled, 
Bat played on, fluttering overhead, 
Till I forgot I went footsore, 
And the dusty hill that rose before 
Was the blue hill far behind me. 7 ' 

A writer tells of a boy who was sunny and 
brave. He met the ills of life, which too 
many people regard as almost tragedies, 
with courage. Nothing ever daunted him. 
Where most boys are afraid or break into 
tears, he was undismayed and untroubled. 
But one day something serious happened. 
He and a playmate climbed a tree. Just when 
our little philosopher had reached the top, 
his foot slipped and he fell to the ground. 
He lay there, evidently hurt, but uttered no 
cry. It was the playmate that screamed. 
The doctor found the leg badly broken. The 
boy bore the setting patiently without a 
whimper. The mother slipped out of the room 
to hide her own tears — she couldn't stand it 
as well as her boy did. Outside the door she 
heard a faint sound and hurried back, almost 
hoping to find him crying. 

[28] 



C^e Call to ptai$z 



" My boy ! " she said, " do you want some- 
thing? I thought I heard you call." 
" Oh, no, mother," he said, " I didn't call. 
I just thought I'd try singing a bit." And 
he went on with the song. 
When you have pain, or struggle, or a heavy 
load, or a great anguish, don't complain, 
don't cry out, don't sink down in despair, 
don't be afraid — try singing a bit. Trust God 
and praise. 



[29] 



€^e ?£e0fre$ of C^t f *att 



[31] 



"Cast out all envy, bitterness and hate; 
And keep the mind's fair tabernacle pure. 
Shake hands with Pain, give greeting unto Grief , 
Those angels in disguise, and thy glad soul 
From height to height, from star to shining star, 
Shall climb and claim blest immortality." 



[32] 



CHAPTER THIRD 



€^e %>t$ixz$ of €1)? ^eatt 




HE test of one's character is 
in the things one delights 
in. Hence also one's de- 
sires are prophetic of one's 
future. We will grow into 
that which we long for. In 
one of the Psalms we read, " Delight thyself 
in the Lord ; and he will give thee the desires 
of thy heart." Most of us would like to have 
this promise for ourselves. In the Arabian 
Nights' Entertainment is the strange story 
of Aladdin's lamp. The son of a poor widow 
in China became possessed of a magic lamp 
and ring, which commanded the services of 
certain powerful genii. By rubbing the lamp 
with the ring, Aladdin got whatever he 
wished, and grew rich and great. But that 
is only an impossible story of magic. Yet 
here is a promise which seems to tell us of a 
way in which we can get everything we wish. 

[ ss ] 



€^e (Bait OBeautfful 



" Delight thyself also in the Lord ; and he 
will give thee the desires of thy heart." It is 
not by rubbing a ring on a lamp that we can 
get what we desire. Religion is not magic. 
Simon Magus thought it was, and tried to 
buy the secret for money. But it is not thus 
that desires for life's good things can be 
gratified. We all have wants which it would 
please us beyond measure to have supplied. 
It would mean a great deal to us to know a 
way in which we could have all our desires 
realized. And that is what we seem to have 
here. " Delight thyself also in the Lord ; and 
he will give thee the desires of thy heart." 
What is it to delight ourselves in the Lord? 
It means to love God, to love to please him, 
to love his ways, his service, his will. We 
know what it is to delight ourselves in a 
human friend. We love our friend so much 
that when we are with him we are perfectly 
happy, have no wish ungratified, need noth- 
ing else to complete our contentment. This 
is the ideal in marriage — that the two who 
wed shall delight in each other. They should 

[34] 



meet each other's desires and yearnings. 
They should be one in interest, in purpose, 
in all the aims of life. A young woman, con- 
sidering the question of marriage and speak- 
ing of the young man she had in mind, 
writes : " I love him very dearly, and yet I 
hesitate to give my life into his keeping. He 
is noble, kind, worthy, but in some respects 
he is far from being the man I always had in 
mind in thinking of marriage. There is 
something lacking in him. There is a need 
in my life which is not fully met in him — 
perfect union in consecration to God." Evi- 
dently there is not yet full, undisturbed de- 
light in this friend. There is not full accord, 
there is not perfect confidence, there is not 
absolute trust. All these elements are essen- 
tial in perfect delight in a friend. 
To delight in God implies also all the quali- 
ties of love, trust, confidence, accord of will. 
Connected with this promise in the Psalm is 
a cluster of counsels which belong together — 
" Trust in the Lord," " Delight thyself also 
in the Lord," " Commit thy way unto the 

[35] 



C^e (Bate ^Beautiful 



Lord," " Rest in the Lord." You cannot de- 
light yourself in the Lord if you do not trust 
him. Trust implies confidence. John leaned 
upon his Master's breast that dark night of 
the betrayal. The distress of the disciples 
was terrible. It looked as if all their hopes 
had fallen into ruin. Yet behold John lean- 
ing on the Master's bosom, calm, quiet, un- 
afraid. Jesus sought to quiet his disciples 
that same hour with the words, " Let not 
your heart be troubled ; believe in God, be- 
lieve also in me." They were to trust with- 
out question, without doubt, without fear. 
Trust is necessary to delight. 
" Commit thy way unto the Lord." There 
will come hours of uncertainty in every life, 
hours when we shall not know what to do, 
which way to take, where to find help. Then 
we learn that the Lord is not only our Sav- 
iour from sin, but also the God who orders 
all our ways. There seem to be a great many 
people who trust God for the salvation of 
their souls, but who have not learned to 
trust him with the choosing of their ways, 

[36] 



€^e l®z$in$ of %ty f eat* 

the direction of their affairs, the care of 
their lives. They worry continually. We have 
not learned the full meaning of trust until 
we have formed the habit of committing our 
ways without question unto the Lord. The 
reason for worrying, which is so common a 
habit, is that people do not roll their way 
upon the Lord. If only they knew the 
blessed secret they would not worry any more. 
Think what it would mean to worrying peo- 
ple if they understood this, if instead of 
being anxious about every little thing, they 
would take it to the Lord and leave it there. 
If we commit our,way unto the Lord, we will 
not go on making blunders, we will no longer 
spoil the web by ignoring the pattern and 
weaving our own way. 

Another of the words of trust in the old 
Psalm is, " Rest in the Lord." A marginal 
reading is, " Be silent to the Lord." Never 
answer the Lord in the way of protest 
against his guidance, never question the wis- 
dom and goodness of his providence. Never 
in the day of cross-bearing or trial ask, 

[37] 



C^e dftite Beautiful 



" Why? " Some of us are not silent to God 
when he does things that are hard, when he 
leads us in the ways that are rough and steep. 
To be silent to the Lord means complete 
submission to his will, without question, 
without doubt, without fear. " I was dumb, 
I opened not my mouth; because thou didst 
it." 

These are suggestions of the meaning of the 
words, " Delight thyself also in the Lord." 
We are to be at home with God. The ideal 
home is a place of perfect love, perfect ac- 
cord, perfect confidence. There is no strife, 
no doubt, no fear, no bitterness. Men are 
telling us these days that we should get and 
keep our lives in tune with God. This means 
that we should fall in line with God in every- 
thing. We are not to demand that God shall 
bring his way down to suit our whims and 
fancies ; but rather that we shall always bring 
our feelings, our desires, our ambitions, into 
harmony with his will. 

The lesson is not easy. A good man said the 
other day, " It takes a long time to learn to 

[38] 



C^e ^egfreg of C^t §tavt 

be kind." It takes so long, indeed, that not 
many persons really ever learn it. There are 
not many kind people — that is, people who 
are always kind to everyone, to disagreeable 
people as well as those who are agreeable, to 
enemies as well as friends, to bad as well as 
good — and that is what the New Testament 
means when it tells us to be kind. It takes a 
great while to learn to be kind. 
The same is true of every phase of the will 
of God. It takes a great while to learn to be 
patient, to learn to be absolutely true, to 
learn to trust God, to be rejoicing followers 
of Christ, to be helpers of others. Neverthe- 
less, these are the lessons that are set for us 
and which we are to learn. It will take all 
our life to learn them w r ell, but really to learn 
these lessons is better than all riches, all 
power, all fame. 

This is what it is to delight ourselves in God, 
to find our joy in him. The promise is that 
if we have this delight in him, God will give 
us the desires of our heart, the things we 
long for. This may seem rather an unusual 



C^e (Bait beautiful 



promise, but it is really given over and over 
again in the Bible. The Lord said to Solo- 
mon, as he began his reign, " Ask what I 
shall give thee." Anything Solomon would 
choose for his life portion, God said he 
would give him. In the New Testament, we 
have this from the Master himself : " Ask, 
and it shall be given you ; seek, and ye shall 
find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto you ; 
for every one that asketh, receiveth; and he 
that seeketh, findeth ; and to him that knock- 
eth it shall be opened." Could any promise 
of God be fuller, more unreserved, more ab- 
solute? 

We must remember that one condition is, 
" Delight in the Lord." You love God su- 
premely. You have committed your way to 
him without doubt or question. You are trust- 
ing him without fear. You are being silent 
to him, accepting his will for you without a 
murmur of insubmission, never asking why 
or how. This attitude of mind and heart will 
make all your desires holy. It will silence in 
your heart all unworthy wishes. It will quell 

[40] 



C^e ^egires of %$y l$zatt 

all sinful longings. You will not long for evil 
things, or for worldly things. You will seek 
God's guidance in all desires for earthly 
things. It is not always the things we want 
that we ought to desire — the things we want 
might work our ruin if we had them. We 
ought to desire the things that will bless us 
in our inner life, and make us beautiful and 
Christlike. We cannot ourselves be sure as to 
the wisdom of our desires and therefore w T e 
must refer them to the will of God. When the 
promise is given that God will give us the 
desires of our heart, it is implied that these 
desires will be such as God approves. 
Desires turned toward God are prayers. 
Some people suppose that they are praying 
only when they are on their knees, or speak- 
ing to God in some reverent attitude of devo- 
tion. But many of the most real and most 
acceptable prayers are never voiced in words. 
They are only breathings of the soul, long- 
ings of the heart, yearnings and aspirations 
which cannot be put into language. One of 
the Lord's Beatitudes was for those who have 

[41] 



C^e <&att OBeauttfwl 



longings in their hearts, " Blessed are they 
that hunger and thirst after righteousness: 
for they shall be filled.' 5 Hungerings and 
thirstings after God, desires to be better, 
longings for more holiness, wishes for closer 
communion with God, are prayers which God 
promises to answer. Hunger is a mark of 
health. Not to hunger any more indicates 
illness. It is so in the body, it is so in the 
mind, it is so in the soul. The true spiritual 
life is full of longings. 

We should remember, too, that whether we 
will or not, the things we desire are really 
given to us. We get them into our life, and 
they make us what we are. It is so of pure 
and good desires. 

" The thing we long for, that we are, 
For one transcendent moment." 

A holy longing makes us holy. Longing for 
Christ brings us into Christ's presence and 
fills us with his spirit, his love. Longing for 
righteousness makes us righteous. But the 
same is true also of evil desires. If we let 

[42] 



C^e ?E>e0treg of C^t ^tatt 

sinful wishes into our mind and cherish them, 
we will grow corrupt in heart. " As a man 
thinketh in his heart, so is he." If you, by 
day and by night, cherish wrong desires, im- 
pure feelings, unholy imaginings, you will 
get your desires, and your life will rot. Let 
wrong, lustful desires stay in your mind, and 
you will soon be, in the sight of angels, a 
mass of corruption and death. We should 
keep a double watch upon our thoughts and 
desires, for they are making us the man or 
woman we shall be by and by. Keep your 
thoughts clean and white and they will build 
up in you a temple of snowy purity. Keep 
your desires fixed upon holy things, right 
things, whatsoever things are pure, whatso- 
ever things are lovely, then you will have the 
desires of your hearts — God will give them 
unto you — and they will build up your life 
into beauty and holiness. 
The great need for us, therefore, is that we 
cultivate our desires into holiness and Christ- 
likeness. What are the dominant desires in 
your heart to-day ? What are you living for ? 

[43] 



C^e €>ate "Beautiful 



What are your most earnest wishes? When 
you are alone, and your mind is free, where 
do your thoughts turn? If the Lord came to 
you in a vision, as he came to Solomon at 
Gibeon, and said, " Ask what I shall give 
you, what I shall do for you," what would 
your answer be? If you delight yourself in 
the Lord, then he will give you what you de- 
sire. 

This is a thousand times better than Alad- 
din's lamp. Abide in Christ, let Christ's 
words abide in you, and no desire of yours 
will remain unsatisfied. That will be happi- 
ness. All life will then be a song — fullness of 
good here, eternal blessing in heaven. 



[44] 



Called to "Be faints 



[45] 



"Never in a costly palace did I rest on golden bed, 
Never in a hermit's cavern have I eaten idle bread. 

"Born within a lowly stable, where the cattle round me 
stood 
Trained a carpenter in Nazareth, I have toiled and 
found it good. 

" They who tread the path of labor follow where my feet 
have trod ; 
They who work without complaining do the holy will 
of God. 

"Where the many toil together, there am I among my own ; 
Where the tired workman sleepeth, there am I with him 
alone. 

"I, the peace that passeth knowledge, dwell amid the 
daily strife, 
I, the bread of heaven, am broken in the sacrament of life." 



[46] 



CHAPTER FOURTH 



Calleu to OBe ^aintg 




N the Roman Catholic 
Church the act of canon- 
ization is the enrollment of 
beatified persons among the 
saints. It cannot take place 
till more than fifty years 
after the persons have died, except in the 
case of martyrs, nor until the most searching 
investigations have been made into their life 
and character. In the New Testament, how- 
ever, the word saints is used of living believ- 
ers. The meaning is not that the Christians 
of those early days were perfect. They were 
faulty, incomplete in life and character, just 
as Christians are in every age. All who love 
and follow Christ are called to be saints. The 
form of Christian life changes from time to 
time. The type that stands in highest honor 
in these days is the strenuous. Activity is the 
word. People who do things are the people 

[47] 



C^e (0ate "Beautiful 



who count, not only in business and in all 
secular lines, but also in religion. It is not 
the saint of the closet, the devout man who 
spends hours at his devotions, in pious med- 
itations, in secret prayer. The man w T ho is 
commended to-day as the greatest Christian 
is the man who is always abounding in the 
work of the Lord. The best Christian life is 
the one devoted to service of love. We say 
we are saved to serve. We say our mission is 
to carry the gospel to every man, to make 
disciples of all the nations. We are to go 
about doing good. Richard Burton writes of 
The Modern Saint : 



No monkish garb he wears, no beads he tells, 
Nor is immured in walls remote jrom strife ; 

But jrom his heart deep mercy ever wells ; 
He looks humanely forth on human life. 

He looks not holy, simple is his belief ; 

His creed for mystic visions do not scan ; 
His face shows lines cut there by other's grief 

And in his eyes is love of brother-man. 
[48] 



Callen to TBe faints 



Not self nor self-salvation is his care ; 

He yearns to make the world a sunnier clime 
To live in, and his mission everywhere 

Is strangely like to Christ's in olden time. 

Dr. James Denney says, in speaking of the 
Life of Christ as it appears in the Gospels: 
" The only Person whom the New Testament 
calls the Saint of God lived in the fields and 
in the streets, mingling in the common life 
of man at the common level; and what 
strikes us most as we contemplate Him is not 
a monotonous and conventionally expressed 
sanctity, however deeply felt, but the spon- 
taneity, the liberty, the unexpectedness, and 
yet the thorough naturalness of such a 
life." 

One of the great present-day words of saint- 
liness is Brotherhood. It is not a hard word 
to pronounce — it is rather musical. It is 
coming to be a fashionable word among 
Christian people. Orators like to use it — 
it is an inspiring word. It is something we 
ought to practice. Men are talking in these 

[49] 



C^e dffate istmtiful 



days about practicing the presence of God, 
living every moment as if they saw God be- 
side them. A little book has been published 
on the practice of immortality, thinking of 
the little common days as segments of eter- 
nity, of eternal life, as if we really believe 
we shall live forever. Some one writes also 
of practicing the Incarnation. The Incarna- 
tion was God coming down and living in hu- 
man flesh, the highest, the most divine, com- 
ing down to help the lowest. We open the 
New Testament and we see the Eternal God 
comforting a sorrowing mother, taking a 
cooing baby in his arms, looking into its 
deep eyes, and laying his hand on its head; 
we see the infinite God curing a blind man 
by putting clay on his eyes, healing a lame 
man by a touch or by a word. This is very 
beautiful, very wonderful. Now practice the 
Incarnation in your own life. That is what 
the law of love requires. The angels must 
look upon manifestations of love in self-de- 
nial and service as finer than the finest dis- 
plays of eloquence or skill. An act of love, 

[50] 



Calleti to I3e ^>aint$ 



says St. Paul, is greater than tongues of 
angels, exhibitions of vast learning, the giv- 
ing of a fortune in philanthropy, or dying as 
a martyr. 

Thus saintliness is shown in love, in helpful- 
ness, rather than in the practice of devo- 
tions. Not that we are to be less prayerful, 
or to cease to read the Bible — waiting upon 
God is always essential in the life that 
pleases God. We cannot be saints and not 
commune much with God. Before there can 
be activity in Christian service, there must be 
a true abiding in Christ. Our Master him- 
self abounded in the work of the Lord. He 
was intensely active. But he also spent much 
time in prayer. He arose a great while be- 
fore day, that he might be a long time with 
his Father before going out to the day's 
tasks. Saintliness begins, therefore, in devo- 
tion, in communion with God. But its mani- 
festation is in active life, in service. 
Another essential mark of saintliness is holi- 
ness of life and character. No accusation is 
made against the church by the world more 

[51] 



€^e d&ate Beautiful 



frequently than this, that the professed fol- 
lowers of Christ are not living up to their 
profession. Is the accusation just? " You are 
not as good as your Book," said a great 
Hindu. " If you were as good as your Book, 
Christianity would soon conquer India." 
What does our Book require of us? First of 
all, Christ demands implicit obedience. " If 
ye love me, keep my commandments." Saints 
are those who ask always for the will of the 
Lord, and instantly do it. 
Christ wants to see the print of the nails in 
our hands. What does this mean in life? 
The cross meant love, love that stopped at 
no sacrifice. It meant vicarious suffering — 
Christ gave himself for his people. We some- 
times get sentimental ideas of the cross and 
of the print of the nails. The old monk said 
he had looked so long and so intently at the 
crucifix, that the nail marks came into the 
palms of his own hands. But that is not what 
Christ means. If to-day and to-morrow you 
deny yourself to do some service of love for 
another; if, to rest one who is overwrought, 

[52] 



Called to Be faints 



you take his place and do the work yourself, 
Christ will see the prints of the nails in your 
hands. When the young minister nursed the 
poor woman's baby himself that the weary 
mother might get out in the fresh air for an 
hour, when the Prime Minister was missing 
from Parliament that he might visit and pray 
beside the poor old dying crossing sweeper in 
his garret, the Master saw the marks of his 
cross. 

Saintliness is shown also in the culture of a 
life. The Bible speaks of the beauty of holi- 
ness. Sometimes, however, what is called 
holiness by men is not really beautiful. The 
Pharisees in our Lord's day thought them- 
selves holy. They were very exact in certain 
forms of obedience, in some respects going 
beyond what the law required. They tithed 
everything, even down to the tiny anise and 
cummin, little garden herbs, giving every 
tenth sprig to God, but they failed utterly in 
the weightier matters of the law — judgment, 
mercy and faith. They made long prayers 
in the streets and in the synagogues, assumed 

[53] 



C^e (Bait I3eautiful 



attitudes of great piety and devotion, and 
were, rigidly severe on other people who did 
not follow all the Pharisaic rules. Then they 
were hard in their dealings. They oppressed 
the poor, they crushed the downtrodden, 
they were unjust, grasping, cruel. Their 
holiness was not beautiful. God does not 
care for long prayers, much church going, 
approved orthodoxy, strict Sabbath keeping, 
with meanness, selfishness, backbiting, criti- 
cism, dishonesty, in the everyday life. True 
saintliness is beautiful. " Whatsoever things 
are lovely," is one of the marks of the life 
that pleases God. 

It is not religion for a boy to join the church 
and come to the communion, and then to- 
morrow get angry when he is beaten in a 
game, or sulk when some other one gets 
something he wanted. These are not beauties 
of holiness. The work of a church in all its 
departments is the making of beautiful lives, 
not good lives only, but beautiful as well. 
There are some who cannot be condemned on 
moral grounds, but are not attractive Chris- 

[54] 



Callen to ise faints 



tians. They are honest, upright, just, but 
are not kind, thoughtful, winning in their 
spirit, not lovable. Christ himself was the 
finest Christian gentleman the world ever 
saw. He was gentle to all men. He did every- 
thing in a gracious way. Let us strive to at- 
tain the saintliness that Jesus commends in 
his teaching and illustrates in his life. 
There is too much counterfeit saintliness. It 
lacks love. It is orthodox in doctrine, but it 
is not pleasant to live with. It is clean cut 
as a marble statue, but it is as cold as mar- 
ble. Saintliness that pleases Christ is flesh and 
blood, not stone. It is human, it is Christly, 
it has the whole Thirteenth of Corinthians in 
it. It has a heart, is self-forgetful, is lowly. 
Many things spoil saintliness. It is spoiled by 
pride. One of the secrets of saintliness is the 
absence of self-consciousness. He who knows 
he is doing good is not doing the highest 
good. Moses wist not that his face shone. 
The saintliness that is most divine is unaware 
of its radiance. 

Saintliness must be helpful. Nothing is made 

[55] 



C^e <&att "Beautiful 



beautiful merely for its own sake. Fruitful- 
ness is the test of a Christian life. Fruit is 
beautiful as it hangs on the tree or vine, but 
who ever supposed beauty to be the chief 
purpose of fruit? It is not for the tree's 
adorning — it is to feed hunger. Saintliness 
is not merely for spiritual adornment. We 
fulfill God's purpose for our lives when our 
holiness, our goodness, our spiritual beauty, 
make us helpful to others, make our lives 
useful. 

Some one says, " God is loving service." 
This is really only an expansion of St. John's 
definition, " God is love," for love is service. 
Love that is not service is not genuine. 
Christ loved and served to the uttermost, 
withheld nothing. There is no true spiritual 
culture which does not add to our power of 
serving others. The prayer of saintliness 
should always be: 

" // there be some weaker one, 
Give me strength to help him on; 
If a blinder soul there be, 
Let me guide him nearer thee. 
[56] 



Called to TSt ^aintjs 



" Make my mortal dreams come true 
With the work I fain would do; 
Clothe with life my weak intent f 
Let me be the thing I meant; 

" Let me find in thy employ, 
Peace that dearer is than joy; 
Out of self to love be led, 
Until all things sweet and good 
Seem my nature's habitude' 1 

There are many more saints in the world 
than we think. Some people are pessimists 
concerning goodness. We think most people 
are bad, very few, at least, good. We may 
not claim sainthood for all men and women, 
but let us think of the homes of any Chris- 
tian community, and the good that is in 
them, the love that is ever ministering. Think 
of the mothers always serving and blessing 
their children, of the wives who live for their 
husbands, of the way many husbands care for 
wives who are frail or invalids, of the noble 
service thousands of children render to their 
parents. Think of the sacrifices cheerfully 

[57] 



C^e (Bait oseawttful 



made, of the devotion almost divine, of the 
tenderness shown by those who care for the 
weak and feeble, and the marvelous patience 
of those who endure pain, loss of rest, trial 
of all kinds, in serving others. Think of the 
way thousands of men pour out their lives 
year after year in caring for their families, 
working long hours, and then working over 
hours to add to their income, how they deny 
themselves, how they scale their own indul- 
gences down to the last penny, that they may 
feed and clothe their children and educate 
them. Think, too, how the poor help each 
other. Think of the heroisms of labor, of the 
way men risk life to save other lives. Every 
day you read of the way some brave fellow 
throws himself into peril that a train may 
be stopped, a runaway horse halted, a child 
snatched from death on the street; of the 
way a doctor puts his own life in jeopardy 
for his patient ; of the way a nurse offers her- 
self to prolong a life. Everywhere we see the 
conscious and unconscious saintships which 
redeem this world from the accusation of 

[58] 



ealleti to TBe ^>aittt$ 



selfishness, lovelessness and godlessness which 
are made against it. 

We need not say that men are not sinners. 
They are bad enough — we are all bad 
enough — but we should magnify the bless- 
ings of the divine redemption and the won- 
derful love seen in the common life of the 
common days. For all these heroisms of sac- 
rifice in the home, on the sea, on the street, 
and in all life, get their inspiration from the 
cross of Christ. 

We are called to be saints. We may be only 
at the foot of the mountain now, but we are 
yet to reach the summit. Every moment the 
call breaks anew upon our ears, bidding us 
press forward. This ought to keep us cour- 
ageous and determined, so that we never lose 
heart, never be content to stay on low levels, 
but always be reaching up to the possibilities 
of sainthood. 



[59] 



d&uatfttng flDirc €^ou$t$ 



[61] 



These are the sins I fain 

Would have thee take away : 

Malice and cold disdain, 

Hot anger, sullen hate, 

Scorn of the lowly, envy of the great, 

And discontent that casts a shadow gray 

On all the brightness of a common day. ,f 



i 62 ] 



CHAPTER FIFTH 



dSuartrtng ®uv C&ougtytg 




T is a busy hive we have in 
our brain, where our 
thoughts play. They never 
rest, never sleep, keep no 
Sundays. We cannot tell 
whence they came, these 
rushing swarms of thoughts, sometimes bright 
like sweet singing birds, and sometimes black 
and sad. Did you ever try to control your 
thoughts, to direct them, to keep them in 
regular order, to shut out the dark thoughts, 
the evil thoughts, the bitter thoughts? 
Thought mastery is the highest attainment 
of life. We may think it is impossible to 
keep out the wrong, the unworthy thoughts. 
But St. Paul gives us the secret : " The peace 
of God shall guard your thoughts." 
Have you ever considered the importance of 
thoughts in your life? Your thoughts make 
you. They are the builders which build up 

[63] 



C^e <£>att 'Beautiful 



the fabric of your character. The thought 
habits you are forming these days will make 
your disposition, shape your character, build 
your manhood or womanhood, for all future. 
Let your thoughts in the early years be oc- 
cupied with yourself, your brightness, your 
beauty, your attainments and achievements, 
the worthy things you do, and you are mak- 
ing of yourself for coming days a vain ego- 
tist, a paragon of self-conceit. If you allow 
your thoughts to run in the line of discon- 
tent and unhappiness, of complaining and 
criticism, of dissatisfaction with your lot in 
life, of impatience and fretfulness, you will 
build all these unbeautiful qualities into the 
man or woman you will be in a few years. If 
you think cheerfully, contentedly, happily, if 
your thoughts are trained and disciplined to 
courage, hope, joy, to self -forget fulness, to 
kindness, if you habitually think of brave 
things, lovely things, noble things, you will 
make for yourself a life strong, rich, coura- 
geous, loving and true. 

Charles Kingsley says, " Think about your- 

[64] 



self; about what you want, what you like, 
what respect people ought to pay you, and 
then to you nothing will be pure. You will 
spoil everything you touch; you will make 
sin and misery for yourself out of everything 
which God sends you ; you will be as wretched 
as you choose, on earth or in heaven either." 
But think of others and think lovingly and 
generously of them, and you will make your 
own heart a flower garden and will be a ben- 
ediction wherever you go. 
St. Paul gives us a splendid programme for 
our thought life : " Finally, brethren, what- 
soever things are true, whatsoever things are 
honorable, whatsoever things are just, what- 
soever things are pure, whatsoever things are 
lovely, whatsoever things are of good re- 
port; if there be any virtue, and if there be 
any praise, think on these things " — the 
good, the true, the beautiful, the praise- 
worthy things. Do not think on things that 
are false, dishonorable, unjust, impure, un- 
lovely, of evil report. Some people see al- 
ways and think only of things that are un- 

[65] 



€^e (Kate TStautiiul 



worthy. They read in the newspapers only 
the scandal columns and bits of unsavory gos- 
sip. You are to refuse to see this unlovely side 
of life. Think of the blue skies and the stars, 
not of the swamps, the bogs, and the street 
puddles. Think in the evening of the pleasant 
things you have heard during the day, not of 
the evil stories. Guard your thoughts. School 
them in worthy and wholesome lines, for you 
are building life. 

" Souls are built as temples are — 
Based on truth's eternal law, 
Sure and steadfast, without flaw. 
Through the sunshine, through the snows, 
Up and on the building goes; 
Every fair thing finds its place, 
Every hard thing lends a grace, 
Every hand may make or mar." 

But is it possible for us to control and school 
our thoughts? Can we keep out unworthy 
thoughts? We are influenced by many con- 
siderations in the words we allow ourselves to 
speak, in the things we allow ourselves to do, 

[66] 



but we are not restrained in the same way 
in the matter of our thoughts. Nobody sees 
them, and so it does not seem to matter. An 
angry man will not speak the wrathful word 
that is trembling on his lips, for people 
would be shocked and would condemn him ; 
but nobody can hear the wrathful thought 
that is in his heart, and so he does not try 
to restrain that. Thoughts are invisible and 
elusive. They are light and airy. They do 
not seem to be within control. Nevertheless, 
we can control them if we will, and we are 
responsible for them. " There is no sin in a 
thought," says some one. Yes, it is a sin to 
think evil. If you cherish anger, envy, re- 
sentment, you are sinning against others. If 
you allow unclean and impure thoughts to 
nest in your mind, you are simply making it 
a den of unclean things. Bad thoughts are 
sinful. The beloved disciple said, " Whoso- 
ever hateth his brother is a murderer." Ha- 
tred is only a thought; thus even an evil 
thought is a sin. You are responsible for 
your thoughts. 

[67] 



C^e <Batt beautiful 



" But," some one says, " the evil thoughts 
are already in. You have opened to them, 
and now your mind is in their possession. 
How shall you expel them? " If your house 
has become full of fumes of smoke or gas, 
what do you do to get them out? You open 
the windows and let the pure, fresh air come 
in from outside, and soon the house will 
be sweet again. If your mind has become full 
of evil thoughts, open the windows and let 
in heaven's sweet breath. We cannot keep 
our mind empty, however. We cannot help 
thinking. " Nature abhors a vacuum." 
If you have formed the habit of thinking evil 
thoughts, impure thoughts, it is not enough 
to shut the door to keep out all such evil 
thoughts in the future. You must bring in 
sweet, good, pure thoughts, to take the place 
of the evil thoughts. Begin to think about 
good things. Read good books and get their 
noble thoughts into your mind. Associate 
with worthy people, choose good friends. 
Read the Bible, and meditate upon its holy 
words. Read clean, pure, inspiring books. 

[68] 



Get Christ into your life, and think on his 
beautiful character, his love, his grace. So 
will you get your heart entirely free from 
bad thoughts by having it filled with good 
thoughts. 

St. Paul has a word about overcoming evil 
with good. If your heart is filled with a feel- 
ing of anger against another, overcome it 
with an opposite desire of kindness. A joy- 
ful thought will drive out a sad one. A gen- 
erous impulse will correct a hurt feeling. 
Some boys had played a game. One little fel- 
low came home gloomy and cast down. His 
side had lost. But that was not the cause of 
his dejection. 

" Mother," he said, " God was on the side 
of the bad boys to-day, and they won. You 
see, we fellows thought we would try awfully 
hard and not get mad or cheat or say bad 
words, and not one fellow did. But the other 
side did. They swore and got cross and 
cheated, and they won. God was on their 
side, and it wasn't fair." 
The mother was perplexed — she could not 

[69] 



C^e (Bait Beautiful 



comfort her boy. The father came in pres- 
ently, and the mother drew him aside and 
quietly told him of the state of things. Pres- 
ently the father said: 

" Well, my boy, I hear you won out to- 
day." 

" Well," in a very solemn voice, " you heard 
wrong, because we were beaten." 
" But I heard there were two games. I heard 
that you lost the match, but won the big, im- 
portant thing — you conquered yourselves. 
You didn't beat the other fellows, but you 
conquered your tempers and bad language. 
Congratulations, my boy; I am proud of 
you." 

The boy's face began to change. " Why, 
that is so, father," he said happily. " I 
didn't think of it in that way. God was on 
our side, after all, wasn't he? ' : 
A well-known author, writing of Alice Free- 
man Palmer, tells of the almost marvelous in- 
fluence upon him of a little talk with her, at 
a critical time in his career. He was in a de- 
spairing state regarding his literary work. 

[70] 



Somehow Mrs. Palmer instinctively perceived 
his state of mind. " Then," he said, " she be- 
gan at once to kindle me, and before I knew 
what was happening, I was afire to do a 
man's work again." A few strong, cheerful 
words from that rich-hearted woman changed 
the depression of the man into hope and life. 
A thought of encouragement drove out the 
thought of dejection. There are some people 
who wherever they go are encouragers of 
others with their brave optimism and with 
their unconquerable faith, and no thought of 
weakness or failure can live in the tonic air 
of their victorious life. No one can measure 
the influence of strong, good lives over those 
who are weak or tempted, or those who are 
discouraged. 

Thoughts of love and power cure the infirmi- 
ties of those who are under the influence of 
chafing tempers, of unhappy dispositions. 
There are some people with whom it is not 
easy to live. They are critical, censorious, 
unhappy, always finding fault. Perhaps they 
have been soured by wrongs they have en- 

[71] 



C^e d&ate "Beautiful 



dured. It is not easy to live with such peo- 
ple sweetly. Even in a home it is not easy 
always for the members of a family to live 
together without friction or mutual offense. 
There is one secret — love, love that beareth 
all things, endureth all things, never faileth. 
The good must overcome the evil. 
It is the peace of God which St. Paul says 
will guard our thoughts. He is speaking es- 
pecially of anxiety, and the meaning is that 
the peace of God will keep us from all wor- 
ry, all pain, all foreboding. We cannot be 
anxious or chafe or doubt or be in distress 
about our food, our raiment, our health, our 
affairs, if this marvelous peace of God fills 
our hearts. 

The whole problem, then, is how to get the 
peace of God. Never by fleeing from our 
troubles, our dangers. In one of the Psalms, 
the writer wishes he had the wings of a 
dove, that he might fly away into the wil- 
derness to a shelter from the wind and 
stormy tempests, but there is no such shelter 
in any wilderness. The only way is by ac- 

[72] 



cepting the will of God, and then fleeing to 
God himself. 

" How shall I quiet my heart ? How shall I keep 

it still? 
How shall I hush its tremulous start at tidings 

of good or ill? 
How shall I gather and hold contentment and 

peace and rest, 
Wrapping their sweetness, fold on fold, over my 

troubled breast? 

" The Spirit of God is still, and gentle and mild 

and sweet; 
What time his omnipotent, glorious will guideth 

the worlds at his feet, 
Controlling all lesser things, this turbulent 

heart of mine 
He keepeth as under his folded wings in a peace 

serene, divine." 



[73] 



joints of departure 



[75] 



"One stitch dropped as the weaver drove 

His nimble shuttle to and fro, 
In and out, beneath, above, 

Till the pattern seemed to bud and grow 
As if the fairies had helping been — 
One small stitch which could scarce be seen; 
But the one stitch dropped pulled the next stitch out, 
And a weak spot grew in the fabric stout; 
And the perfect pattern was marred for aye 
By the one small stitch that was dropped that day, 11 



[76] 



CHAPTER SIXTH 



potntz of departure 




HE way of life is straight. 
It does not wind about. It 
does not make a zigzag 
path. Our experience in 
passing through the world 
is variable. To-day we have 
joy, to-morrow sorrow. Now the road runs in 
the sunshine, again it takes us into the storms. 
We pass through a thousand vicissitudes 
every year — health, sickness, pleasure, pain, 
ease, hardness, prosperity, adversity, gain, 
loss ; but all the while the path of duty is di- 
rect, straight as an arrow's flight. Yet in 
every life there are points at which it is easy 
to depart, when there are strong temptations 
to turn aside. There are certain points, too, 
at which many persons do turn aside. 
The first leaving of home is a time full of dan- 
ger. Home is a warm sanctuary of love. Es- 
pecially is a true Christian home a place of 

[77] 



€^e d&ate TStautiful 



sacred fellowship. Many of the departures 
from the right path date from the day. when 
a boy leaves his mother and goes out into the 
world, where, henceforth, he will not have her 
guidance. 

Going away to school is for many a time of 
danger. The life of the old home begins to 
seem narrow when young people are out in 
their new environment and look back upon it. 
It is laughed at and represented as not up to 
date. Its habits of prayer, for example, are 
sneered at. Many young people find a serious 
testing waiting for them the first night in the 
boarding school or dormitory, when the retir- 
ing hour comes. Will they keep up the old 
home habit of kneeling by the bedside in 
prayer? Many battles are fought at that 
hour — many fought, how many sadly lost ! 
Marriage is another time of danger. It is a 
time of joy. It ought to be a time of blessing. 
It ought to be the gate into a life of ideal 
beauty. Nothing good that has been learned 
in the years before should be lost when two 
young people leave their old homes and enter 

[78] 



points of departure 



a home of their own. Every beautiful thing 
they have been taught to do they should con- 
tinue to do in the holy life they now begin to- 
gether. It is told of a Christian girl recently 
married, that the first evening the young cou- 
ple were in their own house, when they were 
sitting down to their first meal, the wife 
quietly said : "In my old home we never began 
a meal without first either bowing our heads 
and asking grace, or having a silent grace. It 
must be the same in my home." So the two 
reverently bent their heads and sought 
God's blessing on their first meal. That is the 
w r ay it always should be when two Christian 
young people begin their life together. Some- 
times this beautiful custom is not observed, 
and the event is grieved over by angels as a 
point of departure from God. 
Sometimes prosperity proves to be a point of 
disaster to a life. The man who in the days 
of bare and pinched living, when there was no 
luxury, and sometimes was want, was faithful 
to God, when money increases and life grow r s 
sumptuous, forgets God and turns away from 

[79] 



€^e c0ate -Beautiful 



the divine commandments. Or sometimes ad- 
versity brings defection. Most people have 
the impression that trouble always makes peo- 
ple better. The other day, one speaking of a 
man whose life for a number of years has been 
very bad, said, " I have been praying God 
that he might become sick or might have some 
great sorrow, for I think that would save 
him." But it might not — it might lead him 
still farther away from God. Bereavement, 
which ought to soften hearts and sweeten 
lives, has sometimes failed to bring the 
mourner nearer to Christ, or to restore faith 
and prayer in the home. Sickness has oft- 
times left one less prayerful than he was be- 
fore, and with a life less beautiful. 
One said the other day in talking to a friend, 
" I have given up God." The friend spoke of 
prayer. " You have not given up prayer ? Do 
you not pray any more? " " No," the person 
replied, " I used to be an earnest Christian, 
but five years ago I had a great disappoint- 
ment, a crushing sorrow. While it was im- 
minent, I prayed God most earnestly to save 

[80] 



points of departure 



me from the calamity. He did not do it, and 
I have never believed in him nor prayed to 
him since. I do not think God cares." 
The losing of a friend may prove the occa- 
sion of turning aside. Moses said to his peo- 
ple in his farewell address, " I know that after 
my death, ye will utterly corrupt yourselves, 
and turn yourselves from the way which I 
have commanded you ; and evil will befall you 
in the latter days." The day a strong, guid- 
ing friend was taken away has proved to 
many the beginning of departure from God. 
A man with a great temptation said to his 
friend, who was trying to help him in his 
struggle toward a better life, " If I could 
only live with you, or even come to you 
always when I am tempted I could live no- 
bly and worthily." The friend said, " Come 
to me any hour, day or night, when you 
need me, when you feel the temptation com- 
ing on, and we will talk and pray together." 
For several years he went often to his friend 
and lived bravely, not once failing. Then the 
friend died, and almost at once the man sank 

[81] 



C^e <0ate beautiful 



away into sin and failure. He had depended 
too much upon the human friend and not 
enough on Christ. 

There is not a day which does not bring some 
opportunity or occasion of turning aside. 
Business is right, if it be a right business, 
but continually men are tempted to depart 
from the right way in business. Owen Wister, 
in one of his books, says, " The American had 
rather be rich than good, and he is having 
his wish." Pleasure is right. Our Master 
wants us to enjoy ourselves, but there are 
good people who are led away from God by 
pleasure, perhaps by its excess, perhaps by 
its charm, its enamoring. God is driven out 
of many hearts by amusements, which per- 
haps are altogether harmless in themselves. 
It is in the absorption that the dan- 
ger is. 

What in all life is more sacred than friend- 
ship? Of course friendships are sometimes 
formed with unworthy people, and these can- 
not but lead away from God. There are 
friendships which one cannot have and main- 

[82] 



point$ of %>zpavtmt 



tain friendship with Christ. Such friendships 
never can help one into true and noble life. 
But pure, true and worthy friendships may 
also become the means of turning lives away 
from God. It should not be so. When two 
Christians love each other their love should 
make their lives purer, richer, better. But 
sometimes a friendship becomes so intense, so 
absorbing, so satisfying that it leads to the 
forgetting of God. Only the other day one 
said: "Before I was married I loved Christ 
and was active in his service. I was so happy 
with my husband, however, after my mar- 
riage, that my need of Christ seemed to grow 
less and less, and soon, instead of an hour 
for my Bible and prayer, only a few hurried 
moments were given, and after a while Christ 
was left out of the day altogether." Too 
often this is the story. 

There is another way also in which our dear- 
est friends may become hinderers of our 
Christian life. Jesus says in one place, that 
in certain experiences, a man's foes shall be 
they of his own household. He is referring to 

[83] 



€^e (Bait "Beautiful 



persecutions for his sake. There is another 
way, however, in which this may become true. 
Our dearest friends may unwittingly become 
our enemies, doing us the gravest harm. 
Their love for us may tempt us to slacken 
our love for Christ. We remember how Pe- 
ter, in his intense love for Jesus, sought to 
keep him from doing his Father's will. When 
Jesus told his disciples that he must be cruci- 
fied, Peter sought to hold him back from his 
cross and cried, " Lord, this shall not be 
unto thee ! " Jesus rebuked Peter, saying, 
" Get thee behind me, Satan ! " Thus Peter's 
friendship was doing Satan's work — tempting 
Jesus. There are friends who, because of their 
love, seek to dissuade those they love from 
service for Christ that demands sacrifice. 
Thus love may become a peril, and lead men 
to turn aside from complete consecration. A 
Christian mother has been known to keep her 
son from becoming a missionary, causing him 
to turn aside from the life to which the Mas- 
ter had called him. A young Christian wife 
has been known, by her love for her husband, 

[84] 



point$ of ?®tvavt\xvt 



to influence him to give up his devotion to 
Christian work and to cease his self-denying 
service. 

Turning aside in whatever line of life usually 
begins in a small and imperceptible way. No 
one turns entirely away from right in a mo- 
ment. When one seems to depart suddenly 
from close following of God to complete de- 
sertion, there has always been a slow and 
gradual departure preceding the final break- 
ing. The first turning was so slight that it 
was scarcely noticeable. It was only an im- 
perceptible relaxing in the stringency of 
obedience. Still, it was a departure, and what 
is once given up is never reclaimed, and next 
week there is a still further relaxing. 
Take the matter of honesty. A man's simple 
promise is as good as his note. After a time 
he begins to be a little less exacting with him- 
self. He has debts and he neglects to pay 
them on the day they are due. He begins to 
be less watchful in his business dealing. In 
a few months he is quoted on the street as un- 
reliable, then as slow, and at last as a man 

[85] 



C^e mtt beautiful 



who will pay only under compulsion. His 
turning away was gradual. He failed in a 
trifling matter and did not catch himself up, 
and now his one-time splendid name for hon- 
esty is gone. 

In the Epistle to the Hebrews there is a 
word which explains this process. The writer 
says we ought to give earnest heed to the 
things that were heard, lest haply we drift 
away from them. Drift is just the word. The 
boat is not moored and drifts out to sea. 
Lives continually fall into some current and 
drift away. They are not quite so conscien- 
tious in their habits as they were last year — 
drifting. They are not quite so loving as they 
were, not so patient, a little more irritable, 
not so kindly, so forbearing, so sweet in 
spirit, so ready to serve — drifting. 
It is the beginning of the departure against 
which we need to guard. " Turn not from it 
to the right hand or to the left," is the word 
of caution. That is, do not deviate in the 
most minute degree from the right. It is the 
beginning of evil we need to avoid if we 

[86] 



point$ of departure 



would never reach the final step. It is the 
little deflection against which we must watch 
if we would never find ourselves in open re- 
bellion against the right. A little girl was 
overheard telling her mother about a naughty 
child that grew naughtier and naughtier till 
at last he struck God. It is thus always that 
sin makes its progress. It begins only with 
a shade of departure, but ends in defiant re- 
bellion. 

The safety of Christian life depends on the 
avoidance of the first steps away from God. 
To make this course really effective, we must 
take it in a positive way. Instead of being 
satisfied with not growing less beautiful in 
Christian life, we should seek to make ever a 
progress toward higher, better things. We 
can always live better than we have yet done. 
We can make to-morrow better than to-day. 
Not one of us has reached the possibilities of 
our lives in attainment and achievement. 
Scientists tell us of certain birds which in 
their wild state do not sing, but which have 
in their throats fine song muscles, showing 

[87] 



C^e (Kate 'Beautiful 



that if they had had favorable environment, 
they might have been good singers. There is 
no one who has not more life muscles than 
he has learned to use. We have capacities for 
obedience, for service, for beautiful living, for 
usefulness, which lie undeveloped in us. In- 
stead of letting ourselves slacken in the doing 
of our duty, we should set ourselves ever a 
higher work and every day add a line to 
the quality of our life and the worthiness of 
our character. There is a little prayer in an 
old Psalm which would lift us ever up- 
ward. " Lead me in the way everlasting," it 
runs. The way everlasting leads ever toward 
God. 



[88] 



'BuflDfng again t^e f ome i^e^t 



[89] 



11 Hurt as it may, love on, love forever ; 

Love for love's sake, like the Father above, 
But for whose brave-hearted Son we had never 
Known the sweet hurt of the sorrowful love. 9 



[90] 



CHAPTER SEVENTH 



QButlDtttij ^gafit t^e ^ome Jtet 




EDDED life should always 
be happy. That is the ideal. 
Love should reach its holi- 
est and best in the marriage 
relation. There St. Paul's 
vision of love should be re- 
alized : " Love suffereth long, and is kind ; 
love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is 
not puffed up, doth not behave itself un- 
seemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked, 
taketh not account of evil; rejoiceth not in 
unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the 
truth ; beareth all things, believeth all things, 
hopeth all things, endureth all things." 
Marriage, in its full beauty and blessedness, 
is not something one can come into in a day. 
Like all holy friendships, it must be a growth. 
President King says, speaking of personal as- 
sociation in friendship : " He who would grow 
into larger and richer friendship must recog- 

[91] 



€^e dsate beautiful 



nize first of all that, if his friend is in truth 
worthy of such a friendship as he seeks, the 
great way is by personal association. One 
cannot grab up and hurry off with the fine 
fruits of friendship. No friendship that 
counts for much with either men or God can 
become one's own without the giving of time, 
of thought, of attention, of honest response." 
Marriage, as the highest and best of all 
friendships, is no exception. It takes time for 
even the truest and wisest lovers to be fully, 
wholly married. Then there must be constant, 
patient, thoughtful culture. Something new 
must be discovered every day by each in each. 
The possibilities of happiness in marriage are 
simply infinite. 

Phillips Brooks' picture of growth in friend- 
ship through personal association finds its 
most perfect realization in marriage : " Sure- 
ly there is no more beautiful sight to see in 
all this world — full as it is of beautiful ad- 
justments and mutual ministrations — than the 
growth of two friends' natures who, as they 
grow old together, are always fathoming with 

[92] 



'Butining again tye f ome Jtet 

newer needs deeper depths of each other's 
life, and opening richer veins of one another's 
helpfulness. And this best culture of personal 
friendship is taken up and made in its infinite 
completion the gospel method of the progres- 
sive saving of the soul by Christ." 
Such words give us a glimpse of the possi- 
bilities of marriage, what it may attain to, 
what every wedded pair should strive to re- 
alize in their own case. But there are mar- 
riages which do not reach such an ideal. 
Young people entering marriage must re- 
member that a sweet and happy home is not 
necessarily the sequel to a brilliant wedding. 
It does not come as a matter of course after 
vows, wedding ring, benediction and con- 
gratulations. A happy wedded life must be 
made by the parties themselves. No one, not 
even God, can make it for them. A beauti- 
ful house with luxurious furniture and ap- 
pointments does not guarantee it. Love is 
the essential element, but love, holy and ten- 
der as it may be, needs cultivation. Then 
wedded love requires infinite care that it be 

[93] 



Clje dffate "Beautiful 



not marred, that its sweetness be not dis- 
turbed. It is a heavenly plant which earth's 
frosts may hurt or earth's droughts may 
w r ither. 

Sometimes the home nest gets ruffled. Some- 
thing goes wrong and there is unhappiness 
instead of happiness. It ought never to be 
so. Wedded life ought to be so true, so con- 
stant, so patient, so unselfish, that nothing 
could ever mar its happiness. Wedded love 
ought to be equal to any sacrifice that may 
be required of it, and no sacrifice is too great 
to be made that the home gladness be not 
broken. 

The following letter was sent by a friend to 
one home into which trouble had come. The 
young husband and wife had been married for 
several years. They were both Christians. 
Two little children had come into their home, 
bringing joy and gladness. They had been 
very happy until recently. Then something 
had happened which caused misunderstand- 
ing. No matter which was to blame, but the 
difference was not settled in Christ's way, and 

[94] 



•Building again tye ^ome 0m 

the trouble grew until it became very serious. 
Then a friend sought to save the home, and 
the two were brought together. The letter 
was sent to the wife. It was received so grate- 
fully and proved so welcome and so helpful 
in restoring the happiness of the home that, 
with very slight changes, it is given here in 
the hope that it may help to build again some 
other home nest, or help in saving happiness 
that is in danger of being destroyed: 

" My dear Friend : 

" You do not begin to understand my loving 
interest in you and your husband, and my 
desire for the complete restoration of the hap- 
piness of your home. It must not be possible 
for you two dear lovers to fall apart. Noth- 
ing really serious has happened to mar your 
fellowship. You have not understood each 
other quite perfectly — that is all — and you 
have not had quite patience enough with each 
other, so things have gone wrong a little, and 
your relations have become a bit tangled. 
But it is going to be all right now. You will 

[95] 



€^e C5ate beautiful 



not let anything so small do you both and 
your home such harm. 

" Longfellow tells of going out one morning, 
after a heavy night storm, and walking 
through his garden. Under a tree he saw a 
birds' nest lying on the ground. He pitied 
the birds, and stood there thinking sadly of 
their misfortune. But while he was musing 
in his sad mood, he heard a chattering over- 
head, and, looking up, saw the little birds 
busy building their nest again. They were 
not defeated nor greatly discouraged by the 
disaster. 

" That is what I am sure you and your hus- 
band are doing already. The storm came and 
swept your nest to the ground. Yesterday it 
seemed to you that it could not be restored. 
But now you have taken time to think, and 
are bravely building the nest again. And it 
is going to be more beautiful, and fuller of 
love, joy and song, than ever it has been 
before. 

" It may not seem very easy to save your 
home after all that has happened, but no mat- 

[96] 



QBuilDing again tyt l^ome &t$t 

ter what it costs, it will be a thousand times 
worth doing. Love is the sweetest thing in 
the world, but love is not easy. It means 
much self-denial, much forgetting of one's 
own wishes, much restraining of one's own 
impulses, much curbing and checking of one's 
own feelings. St. Paul tells us that ' love suf- 
fereth long, and is kind; . . . doth not be- 
have itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is 
not provoked, taketh not account of evil; 
. . . beareth all things, believeth all things, 
hopeth all things, endureth all things.' It is 
not easy to love in this way. It takes the 
grace of God in our hearts to enable us to 
love after this fashion. 

" You and your husband love each other. 
You have not forgotten the lover days. When 
you were first married, your love was deep 
and tender. Somehow you have not always 
been happy since. Little things have come in 
to make you unhappy some days. But your 
love is really true and strong as ever. It 
would break your hearts to be separated. All 
you want is to get this love into the common 

[97] 



C^e dSate beautiful 



relations of your lives. You have not quite 
learned yet how to deny yourselves and give 
up for each other. 

" A few years ago a happy young wife told 
me this story. She had been married about a 
year. She was recovering from typhoid fever, 
and I was talking with her. She picked up 
from a table a little illuminated card, bearing 
the words, ' What would Jesus do? * and said, 
' I want to tell you about this card, for it 
saved my marriage and my home.' Then she 
gave me this story : ' When my husband and 
I were married we were both hasty in temper 
and speech. We had many a little tiff before 
our wedding, and the first evening we had 
quite a serious quarrel, which, however, was 
soon over, like all our differences. When we 
had come into our new home, we had a dis- 
agreement one day at luncheon. My husband 
left the table in anger, and went out without 
kissing me good-by, and I came up to my 
room to cry. After a time of tears, I got up 
and my eye fell on this card. I had never 
noticed the words before, but now the ques- 

[98] 



QBHil&ittg again tyz l^ome Jtet 

tion spoke right to my heart and demanded 
an answer, " What would Jesus do ? " I be- 
gan to think and to try to answer. What 
would Jesus really do? He surely would not 
do as I am doing — be so impatient and ir- 
ritable, so easily vexed, so hasty and ex- 
acting. I fell on my knees and fought the 
battle out. I settled it there and then that 
I would never again have any angry words 
with my husband, that I would be patient, 
loving and sweet in spirit and in speech. 
" ' I rose from my knees, washed away the 
tears, dressed for dinner, and when my hus- 
band came home, I met him at the door in a 
most loving way. After dinner I brought him 
upstairs and showed him this card, telling him 
the whole story of what I had done. He saw 
that he, too, had been hasty, quick in temper, 
sharp in speech, willful and impatient. We 
knelt together and told Christ all about our 
mistakes, asking his forgiveness, and promis- 
ing never again to repeat the mistakes. 9 
" The lesson never has been forgotten by 
these two lovers. They are among the hap- 

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piest young people in the circle where they be- 
long. The little card has indeed saved their 
marriage and their home. 

" I have told you this little story in the belief 
that it will help you. You are a Christian. To 
be a Christian means that you will do what 
Christ would do if he were in your place. 
Perhaps you have not always thought of this, 
and sometimes have been hasty and impa- 
tient. Love does not demand everything of 
the other person, but it does demand every- 
thing of itself. It ' seeketh not its own.' It 
' beareth all things.' 

" There are wondrous possibilities in your 
married life. You two dear young people may 
be the happiest in the city, and your home 
may become the sweetest, happiest home in all 
the community. All you need in order to real- 
ize these possibilities is love worked out in 
thought, in word, in act, in disposition. Do 
not blame each other when things go awry — 
blame, each, yourself. Never allow yourself to 
be vexed or hurt, at least to show it, no mat- 
ter how much you think you have been 

[100] 



■BuilDing again ti&e f ome Jtot 

wronged, or how unjustly you think you have 
been treated. Love each other as Christ loves 
you. Repay unkindness with kindness. If you 
think you have been unfairly treated, or un- 
kindly, be especially kind in return. That is 
the way to pay back an evil thing done to 
you. 

" God bless you. I believe that a year from 
now you will tell me you have had the hap- 
piest year you ever have had; that the nest 
which the storm tore down has been built 
again, and is more beautiful than ever it was 
before. 

" Faithfully your friend." 



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*v 



iBe^olD, %ty jftoti&er" 



[ ios ] 



li When school is out/ she said, ' once more I'll rest 
My tired head upon my mother's breast, 
And feel her tender cheek against it pressed, 
And there, at last, I shall find perfect rest." 1 

"We sigh for the touch of a vanished hand, 
And we think ourselves sincere; 
But what of the friends that about us stand, 
And the touch of the hand that's here?" 



[ 104] 



CHAPTER EIGHTH 



<( 



TBe^olD, C^t Jttoti&et" 




NE of the words from the 
cross was " Behold, thy 
mother ! " The word was 
spoken to John, the beloved 
disciple. Mary was standing 
near the cross. The sword 
was slowly piercing through her soul, as Sim- 
eon had foretold that day when the mother 
was giving her child to God in the temple. 
Think of the anguish of her heart. Yet she 
was silent — the deepest grief is always most 
quiet. She could do nothing to soothe or help. 
She stood by his cross, watching. Oh, friend- 
ship, constant, faithful, undying! 
But what of the love of the dying Son for 
his mother? His own anguish was unspeak- 
able those hours. Did he think of her then?, 
Or was his pain so absorbing that he forgot 
her? She was standing near his cross — did he 
notice her? Here is the answer : " When Jesus* 

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C^e (Kate beautiful 



therefore saw his mother, and the disciple 
standing by whom he loved, he saith unto his 
mother, Woman, behold, thy son ! Then saith 
he to the disciple, Behold, thy mother ! " 
Jesus had always cared for his mother. She 
was the first friend he ever had. The mother 
is always her child's first friend. Only a few 
times is the veil lifted to give us glimpses 
of this mother and her child. We know that 
Jesus was the ideal son in his love and faith- 
fulness. Few things in this world are more 
beautiful than such friendships as one some- 
times sees between mother and son. The two 
enter into the closest friendship. A sacred and 
inviolable intimacy is formed between them. 
The boy opens all his heart to his mother, tell- 
ing her everything; and she, blessed woman, 
knows how to be a boy's mother, and how to 
keep a mother's place without ever startling 
or checking the boy's confidences, or causing 
him to want to hide anything from her. 
It is almost certain that sorrow entered the 
Nazareth home while Jesus was only a boy. 
Joseph is not mentioned after the visit to 

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Jerusalem, when Jesus was twelve, and it is 
supposed that he died soon after that, leaving 
Mary a widow. No doubt Jesus became his 
mother's caretaker. He was the eldest son. 
He had learned the carpenter's trade, and day 
after day, early and late, he wrought with his 
hands to provide for her wants. The thirty 
silent years of preparation closed, and Jesus 
went forth to begin his public ministry. The 
Father's business now filled his hands — he was 
the Messiah — but we are sure that his love for 
his mother never failed. Love for God does 
not keep us from loving our mothers and 
friends — it makes us love them all the more. 
Doing the Father's work does not make us less 
interested in the duties of earthly life — it 
teaches us to do all duty better. 
It is beautiful to see this love manifesting it- 
self in his dying hours. His heart was full of 
love and sympathy as he saw his mother so 
stricken with grief, and then thought of her 
as she would be when he was gone, desolate 
and bereft. Thus far, he himself had been 
near her in all her need ; now, when the burden 

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grew heavy, he would not be with her. One 
of the bitterest elements in the experience of 
death is the thought of those who will be left 
behind when we are gone. One tells of a man, 
a happy Christian, with wife and children in 
his home, who lay very sick. The doctors said 
he could scarcely recover. When they told 
him so, he showed no fear of death, but there 
was his young and tender wife, who had 
leaned on him in loving trust, and there were 
his children, who needed a father's care. He 
looked into the eyes of the woman who sat be- 
side his bed, and said, " Ah, the outlook is 
very bright, very bright, only — how will it 
fare with you and the boys? " 
It was a feeling much like this that was in the 
heart of Jesus that morning on the cross, 
when he saw his mother standing close by. 
He had a vision of her loneliness when he 
would be gone. He knew how she would miss 
him. Before he went away, he must provide a 
shelter for her. So he committed her to John, 
who was standing by her, asking him to be a 
son to her henceforth. He thought not only 

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of his mother's physical needs, but of her 
heart's longings as well. She would find love 
and all gentleness in John's home. It would 
not be merely a boarding house, where daity 
food would be given to her, and where she 
could sleep at nights. It would be a home in 
which there would be sympathy and tender- 
ness. He knew his mother would be reverentty 
cherished in John's house as long as she lived. 
" Woman, behold thy son ! " Part of the an- 
guish of dying was now gone from the heart 
of Jesus ; his mother would have shelter and 
most tender care. 

While this picture of Jesus and his mother is 
before us, it is natural that we should think 
of our mothers, too, and of our duty to give 
them love and thought and gentle cherishing. 
" Behold, thy mother ! " When Jesus spoke 
these words to John, he was giving him an- 
other mother to care for, to watch over, to 
shelter, to comfort. To be a friend of Christ 
is to stand ready to use all we are and all we 
have to help his friends. It was a most sacred 
honor to John to be chosen from all the 

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Master's friends to be intrusted with the care 
of Christ's own very mother. 
" Behold, thy mother ! " Think what we owe 
to our mothers. They tell us that into the 
strings of some old Cremona violin, the life 
of the master who has played upon it for 
years has passed, so that it is as if his very 
soul breathed out at every skillful touch of 
the instrument. This is only a poet's fancy; 
but when a child in a mother's bosom is loved, 
nursed, caressed, held close to her heart, 
prayed over, wept over, talked with, days, 
weeks, months and years, it is no mere fancy 
to say that the mother's life has indeed passed 
into the child's soul and breathes out in the 
child's life. 

We grown-up people do not begin to know 
what our mothers have done for us, how they 
have given their lives to us and for us. The 
debt of a child to a mother is one that never 
can be fully discharged. It dates from the 
first moment of being; it accumulates as the 
days go on. There are the years of infancy 
with their solicitudes, their broken nights and 

[no] 



K 



isfyoin, %fyy Jftotyer 



>f 



toilsome days, their unsleeping watchfulness, 
their patient nursing. There are the years of 
training and teaching — think how much a 
child has to be taught in its first five years. 
There are the times of sickness when the lamp 
never goes out and the pale, weary watcher 
accepts no relief till the danger is past. 
There is a story of an artist who wanted to 
freshen the old mother's photograph, taking 
out the lines and wrinkles, to make it look 
brighter and younger. " No, no," said the 
son. "Leave it just as it is, lines and all." 
Then he explained how the lines and traces of 
age in his mother were the most sacred things 
in the picture. They were the etchings of suf- 
fering and endurance, the grave records of 
love's cost, when the woman was mothering 
her children. Not a line or a mark must be 
taken from the old photograph. It would not 
be a true picture of the mother if these traces 
of pain were washed out. 

The son was right. Old age, with its decrepi- 
tude, its bent form, its faded, shrunken cheeks, 
is not dishonorable when the years have been 

[in] 



C^e d&ate 'Beautiful 



filled with love. Wrinkles and lines made by 
care and self-denial are honorable credentials, 
records of holy service of love. Perhaps your 
mother is prematurely gray, has lost some- 
what of the freshness of her earlier years — is 
crippled, partly paralyzed, her hands feeble 
and trembling, her speech uncertain; have 
you ever thought that these physical effects 
are the results of her toil, loss of rest, self- 
denial for you ? 

" Behold, thy mother ! " Look at her if she is 
living, think of her reverently if she is gone. 
Sometimes we forget. Sometimes one hears of 
men and women even forgetting their mothers, 
leaving them uncared for, to suffer want, 
while they themselves have plenty, and could 
easily supply their simple needs. Then some- 
times mothers are well enough cared for so 
far as earthly comforts are concerned and yet 
neglected, starved, so far as love is concerned. 
We sometimes hear of people setting apart a 
day in the year when they wear a white flower 
as a mark of honor for a mother. That is well. 
But while your mother lived, did you strew 

[112] 



«( 



Be^oto, C^t jmot^et 



ff 



the path of her feet with flowers? If she still 
lives, do you honor her with flowers of love? 
Do you show her kindness? Do you speak 
gently to her, and make her glad with your 
love ? 

The white flower is an emblem of her purity. 
That is well. A true mother is like an angel of 
God in the whiteness and luster of her life. 
In the schoolroom of the little Princes of* 
Germany, it is said this incident occurred: 
The teacher was saying that all people are 
sinners. The little Crown Prince wanted to 
know if this was true of people of royal rank, 
or only of the lowly. " Of all," said the teach- 
er. " Well," said the little Prince, speaking 
slowly but very positively, " my father may 
be a sinner, but I know my mother is not." 
God bless the true mothers, with their white 
lives. Wear the white flower in honor of your 
mother's purity of soul. 

But the white flower you wear ought also to 
be an emblem of your own life. In no other 
way can you honor your mother so well as by 
a spotless character. There are too many chil- 

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C^e d5ate QBeauttful 



dren who are kind to their mothers in a way, 
doing many things for them, giving them 
presents, then breaking their hearts by lives 
of sin. The mother of Jesus had poignant 
sorrow that day when she stood near the 
cross and beheld her son in anguish there. 
But there were no bitter drops in her grief. 
His life had been all holy and pure. He had 
never done an unkindness. He had never 
spoken a harsh word. 

If boys and young men would honor their 
mothers in the true way, they must do more 
than wear a white carnation on their breast 
one day in the year. They must wear the 
white flower of a blameless life all the days of 
all the years. A mother said the other day to 
a friend, " I would rather a hundred times 
he had been brought home to me dead." Her 
boy of seventeen had been brought home the 
night before, drunk. A boy who loves his 
mother should never give her such grief as 
that to bear. The boys do not know how 
proud their mothers are of them, what bril- 
liant dreams they dream for them as they 

[114] 



(« 



QBe^oltr, €^t Jftot^er 



ft 



think of their future, how they pray for them, 
how they love them. They must not disap- 
point their mothers. 

Perhaps your mother is gone. She cannot see 
how you live : At least so far as you know she 
cannot see. One friend asked another, " Do 
you think our mothers in heaven see us here, 
and know how we live? n The friend replied 
thoughtfully, " I do not know. But let us live 
always as if we knew they did." That is a 
safe rule of life. 

" Behold, thy mother ! " One of the great 
things Jesus did that day when redeeming the 
world was to think of his mother, and provide 
that the cold storms should not blow sharply 
upon her frail, sorrowful life. If this was a 
fit thing for Jesus to do for his mother, it is 
a fit thing for us to do for our mothers, if we 
have them yet with us. Then, if your mother 
is in heaven, and you cannot go to her with 
any fresh honor, find some other one to whom 
you can show kindness for your mother's 
sake. 

Jesus asked John to take his place, and love 

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C^e (Bate iseauttful 



and honor his mother for him. There may be 
somewhere an aged mother, or a mother feeble 
and lonely, who has no child of her own to 
show the kindness of God to her. Jesus says 
to you, " Behold, thy mother ! " 



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WW (0ou C^infejs of as 



[117] 



"God reads — and very truly reads — 
Our motives under all our deeds : 
And if, with purpose pure, to-day 
I seek — but seem to miss my way, 
Yet am I, in the courts above, 
Judged by the perfect law of love/" 



[118] 



CHAPTER NINTH 



ww <0od c^fnitf of m 




NE of the most important 
questions we can ask our- 
selves is what God thinks of 
us. Dr. Stalker has pointed 
out that in every man there 
are four different men — the 
man the neighbors see, the man one's most in- 
timate friends see, the man the person himself 
sees, and the man God sees. The community 
knows us only in a general way, superficially. 
What people think of us we sometimes call 
reputation — what we are reputed to be. It is 
a composite made up of all that people know 
about us, gathered from our conduct, our 
acts, our dispositions, our words, the impres- 
sions of ourselves we give to others. 
A man becomes known, for example, as hon- 
est, because he pays his debts, never defrauds 
another, never fails in any financial obliga- 
tion. Men learn to know that he can be de- 

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pended upon. They say his word is as good 
as his oath, his simplest promise as good as 
his bond. Or, he gets the reputation of not 
paying his debts, of not meeting his obliga- 
tions, of not being dependable in financial 
ways. One man through years of life becomes 
known as generous, kind, liberal, faithful in 
his friendships, obliging, self-denying, chari- 
table. Another wins the reputation of being 
close, mean, grasping, miserly. 
Thus the knowledge the community has of a 
man is only superficial. It is evident that the 
world's opinion about people is not infallible, 
is not complete, is not final. A person may be 
better than his reputation ; his manner may do 
him injustice. Some men, by reason of their 
shyness, their awkwardness, or some limitation 
in power of expression, fail to appear at their 
true value. The world knows only a man's 
outward life, and there may be good things 
in him which it does not know. Then some 
people, on the other hand, are not as good as 
their reputation. Their photograph flatters 
them. What they pretend to be exceeds the 

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WW <Bon confess of m 

reality. They practice tricks which give a 
glamour to their lives, so that they pass in 
public for more than they are. They wear 
veils which hide defects and faults in them, 
and thus they seem better than they are. 
Hence we cannot accept the judgment of the 
community regarding anyone as absolutely 
true, fair, and final. 

There is another photograph — what our in- 
timate friends think of us. They know us bet- 
ter than the people of the community do. 
They understand us better. They see us with 
love's eyes, without prejudice. They know the 
good things in us, which only close associa- 
tion could bring to light. They saw us in 
some times of sore testing, when we showed 
ourselves true and faithful under difficulty or 
at great cost. A woman who had been mar- 
ried a little more than a year wrote to a 
friend, " I thought I knew my husband per- 
fectly before I married him, but I did not — 
I did not half know him. He had faults of 
which I never dreamed — I thought he was per- 
fect, but he was not. Then the year has also 

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C^e (Bate "Beautiful 



shown in him constant new revealings of 
beautiful and noble qualities, of which I had 
no conception. I knew he was good, but I 
did not know the thousandth part of the 
goodness I am now discovering in him." 
Those who know us intimately find the worst 
in us, of course, but they also find the best. 
Friends ought to learn to be very patient 
with each other. We may not always expect 
our mere neighbors to look upon our faults 
graciously, with tolerance, but we have a 
right to expect our close friends to deal len- 
iently with us. " Love suffereth long," says 
St. Paul, " and is kind." Especially in the 
sacred life of the home should love suffer in 
silence and patiently and not judge harshly. 
In an English religious paper which has a de- 
partment for questions and answers, this ap- 
peared : 

" I live with a brother and a sister, both of 
full age. But we do not lead the happy life 
we should live. My sister has got into the 
habit of thinking that pretenses, subterfuges, 
prevarications, are not lies in God's sight, and 

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WW dSoo fttynl® of m 

that fidelities in common things are of little 
account. I get so impatient with her. Yet I 
do not know but my impatience with her is 
as bad in God's sight as the faults I see in 
her. Should I just be quiet when I see it all, 
and leave it to God? How, then, can we have 
sisterly communion with this barrier between 
us?" 

Surely this is not the best that the grace of 
God and the love of Christ can do or ought 
to do with Christian lives in the sacredness of 
the home. To be Christians ought to bring us 
so close together that we shall never judge 
each other any more. Instead of one sister 
seeing great blots and flaws in the other, all 
should have that inexhaustible love which sees 
its own imperfections, but sees only the good 
things in the other. In the closeness of the 
home relation it is easy to discover faults and 
criticise each other. It is easy to overlook the 
good and the beautiful, when defects are so 
manifest. But the very essence of love is to 
cover up mistakes and shortcomings in others, 
and to see everything in the light of patience 

[ 123] 



%ty <0ate beautiful 



and forbearance. Even in ordinary relations 
with others, a loving nature should always 
look for the good and overlook the blemishes. 
A great warrior had an ugly scar on one 
cheek and the artist who painted his picture 
so posed the emperor that the scar was not 
seen. So should we treat our friend, or even 
our neighbor. But especially at home, which 
is to be love's garden, should the flaws be 
veiled and the lovely things be brought out 
in full light. Whatever the world's judgment 
upon men may be, is it not time that the 
friends of Christ should cease to deal unfairly, 
unjustly, unrighteously with each other? 
Yet the judgment of even the truest, closest 
friends is not final. There is a third tribunal 
— our own conscience. There is the man we 
ourselves see. St. Paul could say, " I know 
nothing against myself." That was a great 
thing for him to say. Many of us do know 
things against ourselves, things that others 
do not know. We are conscious of faults which 
even our nearest friends do not see in us. 
When others are praising us for something we 

[ 124] 



WW <0on Ctynfcg of m 

have done we know that it is overpraise they 
are giving us. We are not as good as those 
who love us think we are. Few of us would 
like to see our thoughts written out on a white 
page to be read of all men. We are aware of 
evil in ourselves that others, even those who 
know most of us, do not suspect. 
On the other hand, when people blame us, say 
evil things of us, charge us with doing wrong, 
it is a comfort for us to know in our own 
hearts that the things they say are not true. 
It gives peace to our spirits to be able to say 
we know nothing against ourselves. 
But there is another man in us — the man God 
sees. And this is most important of all. We 
do not know all the secret things of our own 
hearts. There is an Eye that sees deeper than 
ours. We may claim to be without fault, but 
we must know what God has to say. St. Paul 
says, " I know nothing against myself ; yet 
am I not hereby justified : but he that judgeth 
me is the Lord." Even conscience may err. 
St. Paul knew this by terrible experience. It 
is before God that we are really living our 

[125] 



C^e d&ate beautiful 



life. It is pleasant to have people commend 
us when we have tried to do our duty. It gives 
us great joy to have the approval of our own 
hearts. But if we do not have the commenda- 
tion of the Master, human praise and self- 
approval amount to nothing. " What does 
God think of you? " is always the final ques- 
tion. 

Some one may say that since God is so holy, 
and sees into the depths of our being, and 
perceives every blemish, it is impossible for us 
to win his commendation. But holy as he is, 
God is merciful, gracious and compassionate. 
He accepts our service not for itself, but for 
what it means in the way of desire and inten- 
tion. 

It is easier to live for the eye of God than for 
the eye of man. David, when the Lord gave 
him the choice of three penalties after he had 
sinned in numbering the people — seven years 
of famine, three months' flight before his ene- 
mies in war, or three days' pestilence, an- 
swered, " Let us fall now into the hand of the 
Lord; for his mercies are great; and let me 

[ 126 ] 



wm (0od %tyxm of m 

not fall into the hand of man." Men are cruel. 
They judge often harshly. They know only 
part of the truth concerning us. They are not 
patient with our infirmities. But we are safe 
in the hands of God. He knows the worst in 
us and our deeds, but he also knows the best. 
Christ has been tempted in all points as we 
are, and has suffered, being tempted; he un- 
derstands, therefore, the power of temptation 
and can pity us in our weakness and faint- 
ness. He knows when our repentance is true, 
and when we really love him though we have 
so grievously sinned. Peter, when the ques- 
tion was put to him after his fall, " Lovest 
thou me?" could make his appeal to his 
Master's own knowledge : " Yea, Lord ; thou 
knowest that I love thee." We may safely 
make our plea before God himself, rather 
than before man. 

We may trust our lives, therefore, to God's 
judgment, even if they are full of defects and 
flaws. He knows all, and will bring to light 
all the hidden things. Many of the most 
beautiful ministries of love are hidden. We 

[127] 



C^e <0ate "Beautiful 



scarcely know that we are of any use in the 
world. We sometimes think that when the 
King comes, he will have no reward for us, we 
have done so little for him. We do not begin 
to know how many lovely things we have 
done. We have wrought humbly, quietly, ob- 
scurely. We sometimes think our efforts have 
failed — we do not see the harvest — but some 
day all these hidden things will be brought to 
light — our dreams of good which have missed 
fulfillment, the things we wanted to do and 
were not able to accomplish, the kindnesses 
shown to people almost unconsciously. Not 
one of these things is lost. The Master will 
say to this and that lowly one, in the great 
day of revealing, " I was hungry and ye fed 
me." 

St. Paul assures us of praise from God. 
" Then shall each man have his praise from 
God." Think of having God praise you. 
" Come, ye blessed of my Father." " Thou 
hast been faithful." There are some faithful 
Christians who do not often get a word of 
praise from human lips for what they do. 

[128] 



^at (Bod C^mttf of m 

They hardly ever hear a sentence of com- 
mendation. Nobody ever brings them a rose. 
Nobody tells them they are doing good in the 
world. In their own lowly way they make 
countless lives better and happier, their bur- 
dens lighter, and yet they rarely ever hear a 
" Thank you." It will be very sweet, in the 
day of revealing, for these plain, humble ones 
who give out their lives in love, and scarcely 
know they are doing anything for Christ — it 
will be very sweet, when, before all the uni- 
verse, the secret things they have done shall 
be brought out and they shall receive their 
praise from God. 



[ 129] 



gating SDne's tift 



[1«] 



"Somebody near you is struggling alone 

Over life's desert sand ; 
Faith, hope and courage together are gone : 

Reach him a helping hand ; 
Turn on his darkness a beam of your light ; 
Kindle, to guide him, a beacon fire bright : 
Cheer his discouragement, soothe his affright, 

Lovingly help him to stand." 



[ 132 ] 



CHAPTER TENTH 



gating flDne'g Htfe 




ESUS said, " He that loveth 
his life loseth it; and he 
that hateth his life in this 
world shall keep it unto life 
eternal." In what sense are 
we to hate our life ? We are 
not to despise our life, regard it as of no ac- 
count. Sometimes we hear discouraged and 
despairing men say, " My life is of no value. 
I cannot be of any use. I can never do any- 
thing worth while. I may as well die." Jesus 
did not mean that we are to hate our life in 
this way. God never made a life that needs to 
be useless. Jesus said elsewhere that we may 
not accept even the whole world in exchange 
for our life. The Bible says that man is but a 
little lower than God. We understand what 
Jesus thought of the worth of human lives, 
when he laid down his own life to redeem 
them. It is a sin to hate one's life, to esteem 

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it as of no value, to throw it away. We ought 
to love our life, prize it and keep it, cherish 
it and guard it. 

What, then, does Jesus mean when he says, 
" He that loveth his life loseth it ; and he that 
hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto 
life eternal " ? He means loving life more than 
duty, more than obedience to God's command- 
ments. To hate one's life is to give it up 
gladly in service of others, even to lose it in 
saving others. An English medical journal re- 
cently reported that Dr. Waddell was attend- 
ing a poor woman's child with diphtheria 
when the operation of tracheotomy was neces- 
sary. The instant clearing of the tube became 
a matter of life and death, and at the risk of 
his own life, the doctor sucked the tube free 
of the diphtheritic membrane. The child re- 
covered, but the doctor contracted the disease. 
He hated his life, that is, he thought it not 
too valuable to sacrifice in the doing of his 
duty as a physician. The records of every 
day are full of incidents in which, in hospitals, 
in homes, on railway trains, in mines, and in 

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fating £me'$ Mft 



all kinds of service, men and women are illus- 
trating this lesson. The highest example the 
world ever saw was in Christ's own case, when 
the Son of God hated his own life in order to 
save the world. 

It is easy enough to think of this law of life 
in a large way, as a theory. Now and then 
there comes an opportunity also to illustrate 
it in a grand way, as some nurse does, as some 
doctor does, as a mother does, as an engineer 
on a railway train does. But how are we go- 
ing to live this life in the common experiences 
of every day? We ought to try to interpret 
this law of the cross so as to make it ap- 
plicable in the home, the neighborhood, the 
school, the business office. Victor Hugo at- 
tempts it in speaking of the philosophy of 
life. He says : " Men hate, are brutes, fight, 
lie, leave their dream of beautiful life unto the 
shadows. But share you your bread with little 
children ; see that no one goes about you with 
naked feet ; look kindly upon mothers nursing 
their children on the doorsteps of humble 
cottages; do not knowingly crush the hum- 

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blest flower; respect the needs of birds. Be 
like him who has a watering pot in his hand, 
only let your watering pot be filled with good 
deeds and good words." 

The keynote of the lesson is self-denial, which 
is not merely doing without meat in Lent, giv- 
ing up some customary indulgence for a few 
weeks, sacrificing a few things you do not 
care much for to get a little money for the 
missionary collection. There are few farces 
enacted in the world equal to the emptiness 
of pious self-denial, as it is played by a good 
many people, for example, in the Lenten 
days, meanwhile living selfishly in all the rela- 
tions of the common days. 
Hating your life means, among other things, 
stooping down and considering the needs of 
little children, and the loneliness of old peo- 
ple. It means thinking of persons no one else 
is likely to think of or care for ; being patient 
with disagreeable people, even cranky people, 
and kind to them ; going far out of your way 
to be obliging to one who perhaps would not 
go out of his way an inch to do a good turn 

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gating flDne'S life 



for you; not noticing slights, inattentions, 
offensive things, or even slurs ; striving to be 
more Christlike to the person who treats you 
ungraciously ; saying particularly kind things 
of the person who has been saying unkindly 
things of you. 

One of the magazines recently told the story 
of the way a young man gave himself. He 
was poor, and had a great desire to get an 
education and to become a lawyer. He saved 
enough money by hard work and close econ- 
omy to carry him through college in a self- 
denying way. In his first year he made a, 
friend, a young man, brilliant, and noble as 
well, who also had all the money he needed. 
The two were roommates and became close 
personal friends, in spite of their difference in 
position. During the first summer vacation, 
the father of the well-to-do boy died, leaving 
his son no money, however, to continue his 
course. The young man wrote to his friend 
and told him he could not return to college, 
and that he must abandon his dream of ob- 
taining an education, and go to work. The 

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€^e C5ate OBeauttfui 



friend wrote to him about in this way : " You 
have fine capacity and will make a useful man 
if you have education. I have found out that 
I would make only a fourth-rate law T yer at 
best. It will be far better for you to be edu- 
cated than for me. I have money enough 
saved to carry you through college. You must 
take my money and complete your course. I 
inclose a draft for the amount. I will drop 
out of sight altogether and lose myself. Do 
not try to find me — it will be of no use. Do 
not refuse the money — you never can return 
it to me." That was self-denial of the noblest 
kind. 

" Impracticable," some one says. No ; it is not 
impracticable, at least in spirit. You do not 
begin to know how many chances you will 
have every day next year of hating your own 
life in this world, abandoning things pleasant 
and agreeable, and giving yourself, to help 
some other one upward. In the home life, the 
chance comes every hour, the chance of giving 
up your own way to make another happier, 
of keeping gentle and sweet instead of becom- 

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fating One's life 



ing irritated and provoked; of speaking a 
soft answer instead of a cutting one ; of tak- 
ing the heavy end of some burden, that a 
frailer one may not be crushed; of giving 
cheer to one who is discouraged, thus saving 
him from despair. 

There are a hundred opportunities every day 
of dropping yourself out and putting another 
in the way of receiving a favor which other- 
wise would have been yours, of laying selfish- 
ness on the cross and nailing it there, and 
showing love instead. There is an almost in- 
finite field of opportunities for hating your 
own life, denying yourself, sacrificing your 
own feelings, impulses, desires, preferences, to 
make life easier, happier, more joyous and 
more worth while to others. Helen Hunt 
Jackson says — 

If I can live 

To make some pale face brighter, and to give 

A second luster to some tear-dimmed eye, 
Or e'en impart 
One throb of comfort to an aching heart. 

Or cheer some wayworn soul in passing by; 
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C^e dffate "Beautiful 



// / can lend 

A strong hand to the fallen, or defend 

The right against a single envious strain. 
My life, though bare 
Perhaps of much that seemeth dear and fair 

To us on earth, will not have been in vain. 

There is another sphere of opportunities for 
living out the doctrine of the cross in every- 
day life. " Do justice and judgment," runs 
the Bible teaching. Do you ever think how 
grievously some of us fail in being just to 
others? We are unreasonable, exacting, un- 
fair, partial in our judgment. We criticise 
others unmercifully. We commend very few 
people; we condemn almost everybody for 
something. What unchristly judges of the 
acts of others we are ! Then do you ever think 
how little of real forgiveness there is among 
us, even among Christian people? We talk 
much about forgiveness, and we pray it every 
time we say the Lord's Prayer — " Forgive us 
our debts, as we forgive our debtors," but how 
much Christian forgiveness do we practice? 
No doubt it is hard to forgive one who has 

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fating flDue'g life 



treated us unjustly, unkindly, meanly. For- 
giveness is not a natural disposition or act — 
it is divine — it is Christ working in us. 
Yet this is part of our lesson. Not to forgive 
is to love your own life, and that is to lose it. 
To forgive is to hate your own life, not in- 
sisting on having your own way, or demand- 
ing your rights; but to bear the wrong, the 
insult, the injustice, to return good for evil, 
to turn the other cheek when one cheek is 
already smarting with the smiting. What a 
good world we Christians would make of this 
old earth if we would only get the law of the 
cross into our lives ! What heart-burnings we 
should cure! What hurts of love we should 
heal! One of the fine things attributed to 
Lincoln is, " Die when I may, I want it said 
of me by those who know me best, that I al- 
ways plucked a thistle and planted a flower 
where I thought a flower would grow." That 
is one of the ways of hating one's own life in 
this world. It is very easy to plant thistles 
instead of plucking them up. It is easy to 
pluck up roses instead of planting them. It is 



C^e (Bate beautiful 



easy not to deny ourselves, but just to let the 
old unregenerate self rule our spirit and go 
on with our bitter jealousies, envyings, re- 
sentments, injustices, believing evil of others, 
judging others. 

We ought to think a little of the outcome. 
" He that loveth his life loseth it." If we 
love self, we shall lose all. If we hate our life, 
we shall keep it. The life given up and de- 
voted to God and duty, sacrificed in doing 
good, coming to nothing perhaps before men, 
shall grow into eternal blessedness, shall rise 
to nobleness, beauty, splendor of life, in the 
heavenly glory. A man said recently : " I have 
worked all my life, but have never got ahead, 
have never gathered any money. There has 
always been some human need waiting when 
I had begun to accumulate a little, and I had 
to use my savings to give help." That man 
has made a great deal of money, but he has 
little in hand. He has hated his own life and 
has given all to help others. Yet he has not 
been losing — he has been keeping his life for 
eternity. Christ says of those who serve him 

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gating kite's Itfe 



and follow him, " Where I am, there shall also 
my servant be." Think of being with Christ 
when you have finished your life of serving, 
self-denial and sacrifice in following him here. 
Think of where you will be and what you will 
be after you are dead. 

" Think that the grass upon thy grave is green ; 
Think that thou seest thine own empty chair, 
The empty garments thou wast wont to wear, 
The empty room where long thy haunt hath been ; 

" Think that the lane, the meadow and the wood 
And mountain summit know thy feet no more y 
Nor the loud thoroughfare, nor sounding shore — 
All mere blank space where thou thyself hast 
stood. 

" Amid this thought-created silence, say 
To thy stripped soul: What am I now and 

where ? 
Then turn, and face the petty, narrowing care 
Which has been gnawing thee for many a day, 
And it will die, as dies a wailing breeze, 
Lost in the solemn roar of bounding seas." 
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C^e jflafeing of jtten 



[ 145] 



"'Tis the front toward life that matters most- 
The tone, the point of view, 
The constancy that in defeat 
Remains untouched and true ; 

"For death in patriot fight may be 
Less gallant than a smile, 
And high endeavor, to the gods, 
Seem in itself worth while J" 



[ 146] 



CHAPTER ELEVENTH 



€^e Jttafcing of pim 




HE tree registers its age by 
annual circles of growth. 
The year that leaves no 
mark cannot be a worthy 
year. Phidias put himself 
under still severer test. His 
motto was, " No day without a line." He must 
be a little better artist every evening than he 
was in the morning. Life that is not growing 
is decaying. Some people do not like to admit 
their age — they cannot endure the thought 
that they are growing older. But our only 
concern need be to put so much true and beau- 
tiful living into every passing year that the 
coming of a new birthday shall never fret us. 
We should be truly ashamed of any birthday, 
however, which marks an empty year, with 
nothing worth while in it to show that we have 
lived. 

The one real business of life is making men. 

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C^e (Bate 'Beautiful 



St. Paul tells us this in a noble passage in 
which he is speaking of Christ's work after his 
ascension. He gave some to be apostles, some 
prophets, some pastors and teachers. The 
purpose of all this giving of divinely endowed 
ministries was for the perfecting of saints, 
unto the work of ministering till we all attain 
unto a full-grown man. Thus the mission of 
the church is the making of men- Its minis- 
trations are for our perfecting. 
It is for this that we are to read the Scrip- 
tures. The Bible shows us God. It keeps ever 
before us the life of Jesus Christ, who was the 
manifestation of God. It makes known to us 
the will of God. It keeps us familiar with the 
true standards and ideals of living. It is for 
this also that we are to pray. Prayer lifts us 
up into communion with God and kindles 
longings and aspirations in our hearts. It 
brings heaven down into our earthly lives and 
thus helps toward our growth. Perfection 
seems beyond our reach, but every day should 
bring us a little nearer to it. Life is a school 
and we are always to be learners. We have to 

[148] 



€^e jftafiing of jftm 

learn to be content, to be patient, to be kind. 
All heavenly virtues and graces are lessons set 
for us, and as we learn them we grow toward 
perfection. 

Another part of the work of the church is to 
train us in the work of ministering. To min- 
ister is to serve. We are to learn to be always 
doing good. There are human needs and sor- 
rows about us continually and part of our 
business in this world is to be helpers of need 
and comforters of sorrow. No man is grow- 
ing toward full manhood who is not becoming 
more sympathetic toward all human condi- 
tions and more helpful toward all who are 
weak or in want. It is important that Chris- 
tians shall be honest, true, just and upright, 
patriotic. But they may be all this and yet 
not reach up to the measure of the stature of 
the fullness of Christ in loving and serving 
others. 

" Just the art of being kind 
Is all this sad world needs." 

Some people become discouraged because they 
seem to be effecting so little in impressing or 

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€^e d^ate beautiful 



influencing others, but ofttimes the things 
which appear to us so small are really of 
greatest value in the end. He who gives but 
the faintest touch of beauty to another life 
does something w r hich will last forever; and 
he who strives to do good, though he seem to 
fail, is rewarded. There is a legend of a monk, 
Fra Bernardo. The monastery to which he be- 
longed had vowed to erect a carved altar at 
Christmastide. All the monks had finished 
their part save Fra Bernardo. On Christmas 
Eve he knelt and told his Lord that he had 
failed — he had tried to do something worthy, 
but he had no skill. Then he prayed once more 
that he might be given skill to carve his 
heart's dream of beauty that very night, that 
he might not altogether fail, for he loved his 
Lord. In the morning the monks found Fra 
Bernardo in his cell, 

" Dead, smiling still, and prostrate as in prayer ; 
While at his side a wondrous carving lay — 
A face of Christ sublimely tender, sweet. 
The work of Fra Bernardo was complete." 

[150] 



C^e jftafefttg of jften 

So will it be with all who appear to fail but 
who continue to strive and do their best. At 
the last it will be seen that what seemed fail- 
ure is full of the beauty of Christ. God fin- 
ishes the work his faithful ones try to do for 
him. 

Christ takes us, first, as children, with our life 
immature, undeveloped, imperfect, but his 
work in us will not be complete until we have 
become men, strong, tall, noble, full-grown 
men. The sculptor, before he strikes a blow 
upon his marble, has in mind a vision of what 
he means to make, and every stroke is toward 
the fashioning of the stone into the beauty of 
his thought. God likewise has a plan for 
every life. It is never haphazard work that he 
does at any point. From first to last he seeks 
to bring the man in us up to the grace, 
strength, and nobleness of full-grown man- 
hood. 

This making of men is not all done in church 
services, at prayer meetings, at communions, 
in places of devotion. Christ is making men 
all the while, in their homes, out in their 

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C^e dsate OBeautteul 



places of toil and struggle. The business of 
the carpenter, we should say, is to make 
the things carpenters usually make. But in 
Christ's purpose it is the making of a man. 
The business of the farmer is to till his soil 
and gather good harvests. But God's higher 
thought for the farmer in all his work is the 
making of a man. The merchant supposes he 
is conducting his business for the convenience 
of his patrons and for his own enriching. But 
if meanwhile he is not himself being built up 
in strength and beauty of character, not 
growing toward Christly manhood, he is not 
entirely successsful, is not quite reaching 
God's thought for him, however prosperous 
he may be in a commercial way. 
The same is true of all kinds of callings and 
occupations. A man was not thought about 
in God's plans and then made, endowed with 
gifts and faculties, primarily that he might 
be a builder, erecting so many houses in his 
lifetime, or a painter, ornamenting a certain 
number of buildings, or an artist putting 
on canvas noble pictures which shall win him 

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€^e jHafeing of jtten 

fame and give pleasure and ennobling of mind 
and heart to those who look at them. A man's 
carpentering, his building, his painting, his 
farming, his work as an artist, as a teacher, 
as a merchant, as a seaman, all the things he 
does among men are only incidents in the real 
work of his life — his growing into ideal char- 
acter. 

Religious teachers speak of certain exercises 
■ — prayer, Bible reading, acts of devotion, the 
sacraments, as " means of grace," acts of wor- 
ship in which we receive divine blessing and 
are helped in spiritual growth. We may add 
to this list of means of grace all life's affairs 
and occupations. It is in these that w T e have 
the opportunity of applying the truths and 
principles we learn in the Holy Scriptures, 
and of putting in practice the lessons we are 
taught by the great Teacher. 
All of what we call our secular life is really a 
sort of scaffolding on which we work day after 
day, while we are rearing, beautifying, and 
at last finishing within, the temple of our own 
life and character. 

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C^e d5ate OBeauttfxrt 



Thus the making of men is the ultimate end 
of all life, and the test of all that we do is 
not the material results achieved, the things 
people see and note in footing up what we 
have done, but the results we have wrought 
in ourselves, in our own life. St. Paul has 
this truth in mind when he says that the 
things which are seen are temporal, while the 
things which are not seen are eternal. 
The personal experiences of life are also to be 
thought of as all belonging to the processes in 
which God is at work on us, training and dis- 
ciplining us into full-grown men. Many have 
sorrows, sufferings, losses and distresses in 
their common days. Some find life very hard. 
It may be sickness, with its pain and depres- 
sion. It may be bereavement which brings 
loneliness and sorrow. It may be loss of 
money which sweeps away the earnings of 
years and leaves want. It may be the failure of 
friendships which have not proved true, mak- 
ing the heart sore and empty. Some people 
are heard asking why it is that they must suf- 
fer so if God really loves them. We may not 

[ 154 ] 



C^e jEafeing of Jtten 

try to answer the question, for we may not 
attempt to speak for God. But we may al- 
ways say, " God is making us." 
Michael Angelo, as he hewed away at his mar- 
ble, would watch the clippings fly under the 
heavy strokes of his mallet, and would say, 
" As the marble wastes, the image grows." 
In the making of men there is much to be cut 
away before the hidden beauty will appear. 
The marble must waste while the image 
grows. We never need be afraid of the hard 
days and the painful things. If the marble 
had a heart and could think and speak, it 
might complain as the sculptor's cutting and 
hewing go on so unfeelingly, but when at last 
the magnificent statue is finished, the mystery 
of the hammer and chisel is made plain. This 
is what the artist was doing all the while. 
God's ways with us in his providences are 
incomprehensible. But when the life stands at 
last before God, complete, there will no longer 
be any amazement, any asking why. In all 
the strange and hard experiences God has 
been making men of us. 

[155] 



C^e dsate beautiful 



Knowing this, we should be able to submit our 
lives to the divine will and discipline, cheer- 
fully and implicitly, however painful it may 
be for us. Many people seem never to think 
of themselves as being thus in the process of 
making. They live aimlessly, without a pur- 
pose. We should be done forever with indo- 
lence or haphazardness in our living. We 
should learn to work with God in his purpose 
for us in every day's work and experience, 
seeking to become ever somewhat better men, 
to come a little nearer to the full-grown man- 
hood which is Christ's final vision for us. 
If we grasp the truth that the purpose of God 
for us in all our experiences is the making of 
us, it will greatly simplify our life. It w T ill 
make plain to us the meaning of many things 
which now trouble and perplex us. It will 
give us an inspiring thought concerning the 
meaning of our common work, our business, 
our occupation and calling. It will give a 
unity to the meaning of all our experiences. 
None of them are accidental. They are not 
derelicts drifting into our lives and harming 

[156] 



C^e jttafefng of jtten 

or destroying us, as the derelicts on the sea 
harm or wreck vessels in their course. What- 
ever may be the source of the hard things, 
they are taken into the hands of Christ and 
do their part in the making of us. Nothing 
can harm us if we believe on Christ and are 
faithful to him. 

" The wind that blows can never kill 

The tree God plants ; 
It bloweth east, it bloweth west ; 
The tender leaves have little rest, 
But any wind that blows is best. 

The tree God plants 
Strikes deeper root, grows higher still, 
Spreads wider boughs, for God's good will 

Meets all its wants." 



[157] 



Christian ftianlinm 



[159] 



11 Give us men! 

Strong and stalwart ones ; 
Men whom highest hope inspires, 
Men whom purest honor fires, 
Men who trample self beneath them, 
Men who make their country wreathe them 

As her noble sons 

Worthy of their sires ! 
Men who never shame their mothers, 
Men who never fail their brothers, 
True, however false are others ; 

Give us men — / say again, 
Give us men /" 



[160] 



CHAPTER TWELFTH 

Christian pianlixim 




HEN St. Paul would stir up 
Christians to their best, he 
bade them quit themselves 
like men. He meant that if 
they would be manly and 
act manfully, they would be 
worthy Christians. No ideal is higher than 
just to be a man. What is manliness? There 
is no one exact model. No two men are pre- 
cisely alike, for every man has his own indi- 
viduality, which modifies the expression of his 
life. Besides, no man at his best is anv more 
than a fragment of a man. We find some lines 
of beauty in almost every man, but in no one 
do we find all the qualities of ideal manliness. 
It has been suggested that if it were possible 
to gather, through all the centuries, from all 
the individuals of the whole human race all the 
fragments of manly character that through 
the ages have existed in all, and combine these 

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C^e (Kate OBeauttful 



in one composite character, that would be the 
ideal man. 

While men differ in their individual lives, 
there are certain great qualities which are es- 
sential in all noble manhood. Truth is one 
of these. God desires truth in the inward 
parts. He wants truth in all the life. It is a 
great thing to be able to say of a man that 
you may depend absolutely on any statement 
he makes to you. What he tells you of another 
person or of any event or occurrence, you 
may be positively sure is a fact. 
Then anything a man promises to do, he 
should do. He should never break a promise 
to anyone, however unimportant the thing 
promised may be. Failing to keep one's word 
may be counted a little thing, but it is really 
a great thing. If it is only a penny you 
agreed to pay, pay it the day you said you 
would. If it is only a postal card you prom- 
ised to write to-morrow, write it. Let your 
word be absolutely kept in the smallest mat- 
ter. Fulfill your lightest engagements. Do 
always precisely what you said you would. 

[162] 



Honesty also is essential in manly character. 
And the time to begin to build honesty into a 
character is in boyhood. A dishonest boy will 
not grow up into an honest man. We should 
make it absolutely impossible for us to touch 
or even to think of touching or even desiring 
anything that is not our own. An explorer in 
the Arctic regions tells of burying a box of 
fish in the ice, meaning to send for it later. 
He did not return to the place for a consider- 
able time. Meanwhile a famine came on. The 
people knew where the food was concealed. 
Yet in all their suffering no one touched it. 
" Why did you not eat the fish ? " asked the 
explorer in surprise, when he came back and 
found the food still where he had left it. " It 
was not ours," was the answer, " and we could 
not touch it." That is the law of honesty. 
What is not ours, we should never think of 
appropriating, whatever our need. 
Justice is another essential quality of manli- 
ness. Justice is part of love. We should never 
wrong another. The Golden Rule should dic- 
tate all our treatment of others. We should 

[163] 



C^e (Bate beautiful 



never take advantage of another's ignorance 
of values to drive a sharp bargain. We should 
never put blame upon others when probably 
the fault was ours as much as theirs. Or if 
it was the others', it is the Christian way to 
take it upon ourselves. We always judge un- 
justly when we judge harshly. We do not 
know in our judgments of others the secret 
cause of the unbeautiful thing — the mood, or 
temper, or fret, which displeases us so in 
them. We blame others, too, when, if we knew 
the facts, we would pity them. Or it may be 
something we condemn in another, which, if 
we saw it in its full light, would reveal beauty, 
a splendor of self-sacrifice. Some young men 
censured one of their number for niggardli- 
ness, because he dressed plainly and lived 
cheaply. Later, they learned that he was car- 
ing for an invalid and suffering sister, and 
that it was in order to provide comforts for 
her that he stinted himself. Then they hon- 
ored him as a hero. We may set it down as 
a rule that harsh judgments are never just. 
If we would always be just to each other, we 

[ 164] 



C^rtgtian jHanline&s 

must never judge them, but must love them 
rather, dealing charitably with them, leaving 
judgment to God, who knows all, and never 
can be unjust. 

Purity is another quality of manliness. The 
New Testament has a great deal to say about 
cleanness of life. This is not a clean world 
through which we are passing. It is full of 
evil. Yet the problem of Christian living is 
to go through the world, keeping our gar- 
ments clean. " But," some one asks, " how is 
it possible for anyone to do his work in this 
world, living amid unclean things, and never 
take any stain on his own life ? " 
Some one answers in this way. Just out of 
reach from his window, the writer says, 
stretches a wire which carries a heavy current 
of electricity for light and power. If he could 
lean far enough out to touch it, death would 
come to him swifter than a tiger's leap. Yet 
the doves light on that wire every fair day 
and are not harmed. Why w 7 ould the wire 
mean death to the man if he could reach out 
from his window and touch it, and why is it 

[165] 



%X)t (Kate beautiful 



a safe resting place for the doves? The se- 
cret is that when the doves sit there they 
touch nothing but the wire. But if the man 
reaches out of his window and touches the 
wire with his fingers, he would also be touch- 
ing the walls of his house, and would thus 
form a circuit and the deadly current would 
flow through his body. 

We may touch the worst evil in the world 
without harm or pollution so long as we are 
given wholly up to God. But if our own 
hearts are in contact with sin, clasping it and 
cherishing it, we cannot move safely through 
this evil world. Jesus said of his disciples, 
when he sent them out to carry the gospel to 
men, " They shall take up serpents, and if 
they drink any deadly thing, it shall in no 
wise hurt them." A man who is given up 
wholly to Christ can go through this world 
serving his Master and blessing his fellows, 
and nothing shall harm him. 
Beauty is another quality of true manliness. 
It is not enough for a man to be true, to live 
honorably, to be just, to be pure and clean — 

[166] 



C^rigtian jttanlmegg 

he must also have in his life whatsoever things 
are lovely. All God's works are beautiful. He 
never made anything that was not beautiful. 
It is sin that spoils everything. There are 
many lives that are not lovely in every fea- 
ture. You see things in others which you can- 
not admire, things which are not beautiful. 
Fretting is not beautiful. Bad temper is un- 
lovely. Discontent, jealousy, irritability, un- 
kindness, selfishness are unseemly. It is the 
work of grace to make lives beautiful. All 
that grace does in us is toward the fashion- 
ing of beauty in us. 

On a florist's signboard are the words, 
" Ugly corners made beautiful." The florist 
had reference to what he could do to beautify 
an ugly spot or a piece of landscape. He 
would trim out the weeds, plant flowers and 
shrubs, and transform a wilderness into a gar- 
den. That is what grace can do in our lives, 
our homes, our communities and in the world. 
Some men seem to think that the fine and 
graceful things are only for women, not for 
men. But Christ was a man, a perfect, com- 

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plete man, and there was not a single unlovely 
thing in his life. He was strong, but also gen- 
tle. He was just, but kindly. He was firm, 
but patient. He was righteous, and his indig- 
nation burned like fire against all hypocrisy, 
all oppression of the poor, all injustice, but 
his tenderness never failed. Fine manliness is 
beautiful, like Christ's own. We should seek 
ever for beautiful things, and wherever we 
find anything lovely, we should at once take 
it into our life. We should make our re- 
ligion beautiful in every feature. Only thus 
can we truly honor Christ in this world. Our 
lives are the only Gospels many men read. 
Let us be sure we do not misrepresent the 
Master whom we would recommend and show 
to the world wrong examples of him. 
Love is also essential to manliness. There is 
no complete manliness that is not loving. God 
is love, and we grow into true Godlikeness 
only as we grow in lovingness. One writer 
says, " If we knew our brother as God knows 
him, we should never dare to despise him any 
more." God sees something to admire and 

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love in the most faulty and imperfect man in 
all the world. Christ saw in the worst man 
that which made him willing to die for him. 
Men should love one another. They should be 
friends to each other. They should help each 
other to live. Some of your brothers find it 
hard to be good, to be true, to be beautiful 
in spirit. Some men have fallen into bad 
habits and it seems that they cannot overcome 
them. They want to, but the chains are steel. 
Help them. 

Some men get discouraged. Their work is 
hard, their battle fierce, and they scarcely ever 
hear a word of cheer. Fulton, the great in- 
ventor, near the close of his life, wrote this 
pathetic sentence : " In all my long struggle 
to work out the principles of the steam en- 
gine, I received innumerable jeers, opposing 
arguments, prophecies of failure, but never 
once an encouraging word." There are many 
men battling hard, striving to live well, to at- 
tain something worth while, who are left un- 
helped, with only discouragement, and with 
rarely ever a word of cheer. There is nothing 

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that Christian men can set themselves as a 
task that will mean more to their brothers 
than to become encouragers, givers of cheer. 
Some one suggests a new Beatitude : " Bless- 
ed are the cheer-makers, for they shall be 
called the sons of the morning." 
Love is an essential quality of the finest manli- 
ness. Unlovingness is always unmanly, be- 
cause it is always unchristlike, undivine. Then 
it is also a mistake. It always does harm in 
two ways. It harms the person to whom it is 
done, and it also harms the person who does 
the unloving thing. Charles Kingsley says, 
" Whenever we have failed to be loving, we 
have also failed to be wise ; whenever we have 
been blind to our neighbor's interests, we 
have been blind also to our own ; whenever we 
have hurt others, we have hurt ourselves much 



more." 



We do not begin to understand what our lives 
mean to others who see us and are touched by 
us. It is possible to do too much advising or 
exhorting of others, but we never can do too 
much beautiful living. One can send a blessed 

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influence out through a whole community, 
just by being a splendid man. He may not be 
eloquent or brilliant ; he may not be a states- 
man, an architect, a distinguished leader, a 
noted physician or surgeon, a gifted orator ; 
but simply to be a worthy, noble, good man, 
for ten, twenty, thirty years in a community, 
is an achievement gloriously worth while. 
Men who are living nobly do not begin to 
know how many others are living well, too, 
just because they are. 

It is a great thing to believe in others. We 
cannot do anything for others by doubting 
and distrusting them. Men are coming to 
know that the only way to help others is to 
love them and believe in them. Aldis Dunbar, 
in The Century, writes of what believing in 
another will do for him: 

Because of your strong faith, I kept the track 
Whose sharp-set stones my strength had well- 
nigh spent. 
I could not meet your eyes if I turned back : 
So on I went. 

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Because you would not yield belief in me, 
The threatening crags that rose, my way 

to bar, 
I conquered inch by crumbling inch — to see 

The goal afar. 

And though I struggle toward it through hard 
years, 

Or flinch, or falter blindly, yet within, 
" You can !" unwaveringly my spirit hears : 

And I shall win. 

The noblest thing a man can do In this world 
is to be a man, such a man as God has planned 
in his thought for him to be. He need not 
be a famous man, a man noted among men, 
one whose praise is sung on the streets, but a 
man who is true, brave, pure, just, beauti- 
ful and loving, a man who lives for God and 
for his fellows. 



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" The life of man 

Is an arrow 1 s flight 
Out of darkness 

Into light 
And out of light 

Into darkness again ; 
Perhaps to pleasure, 

Perhaps to pain. 

" There must be something, 

Above, or below ; 
Somewhere unseen 

A mighty Bow, 
A Hand that tires not, 

A sleepless Eye 
That sees the arrows 

Fly, and fly; 
One who knows 

Why we live — and die." 



[ 174 I 



CHAPTER THIRTEENTH 




HERE is a strange story or 
tradition of a stone which 
was originally meant for an 
important place in the tem- 
ple, but which was misun- 
derstood and rejected by 
the builders. When the temple was about to be 
finished, one stone of peculiar shape was need- 
ed to complete it, and this stone could not be 
found. There was great excitement. " Where 
is the capstone ? " the builders asked. The 
ceremonies waited while search was made 
everywhere for the missing block. Some one 
suggested, " Perhaps the stone which the 
builders condemned and threw away among 
the rubbish is the one needed now for the 
place of honor." It was found and brought, 
and it fitted perfectly. The stone was misun- 
derstood by the builders. It came nigh being 
missed altogether, and if it had been there 

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would have been an unfilled space in the wall 
and an incomplete building. 
Continually the same occurs in life. There 
are many people who do not seem to fit into 
any place among men. They do not appear 
to have ability for anything worth while, to 
possess qualities which will make them of 
value to the world. They are not brilliant, or 
strong, or skillful, nor do they seem likely to 
do anything to distinguish themselves. Per- 
haps they seem peculiar, eccentric. Yet later, 
they develop strength, ability, wisdom, even 
greatness, and fill important places in the 
world. In a recent book, a number of pages 
are devoted to an account of eminent men for 
whom in their early years their friends and 
teachers predicted failure. They were dul- 
lards, not showing capacity. Afterwards, 
however, when they found themselves, these 
men became distinguished. 
Parents need not be discouraged if children 
at first seem unpromising, not caring for 
study. There may be hidden in their brain 
and heart possibilities of power which will be 

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brought out in certain circumstances, after- 
wards fitting them for important duties. God 
knows what he is doing when he is making 
men. He never makes one he has no place 
for in the world. Even if it is a broken life, 
there is some place for it, some work it is 
specially fitted to do. 

This truth is illustrated in life's common rela- 
tions. There are many who are misunder- 
stood and unappreciated, who do not get their 
proper meed of praise and commendation. It 
is so in many homes. There are men who do 
not half understand the nobleness of their 
wives and the delicate beauty of their lives, 
nor appreciate the worth of self-denials and 
self-sacrifices which they continually make for 
their homes and for those they love. There 
are many women who receive little commenda- 
tion, who rarely hear even a kind, approving 
word, but who are honored by the angels be- 
cause of the genuineness of their service and 
its lowliness and unselfishness. They have not 
found their true honor on earth, but some day 
it will be seen that their lives are for high 

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places in the temple of God that is slowly 
rising. 

A great many people everywhere — men as 
well as women — are not well understood. 
They have peculiarities which neutralize some 
of their good qualities. They are uncouth and 
unattractive in some ways. People do not see 
the good that is in them, do not value them 
at their true worth, underestimate and mis- 
understand them. Here is a man whom many 
of his neighbors do not like. Something in his 
manners offends them, excites in them un- 
kindly thoughts toward him. They say that 
he is not sincere, that he does not mean what 
he says. They judge him as lacking the ele- 
ments of character which are essential to the 
best and most beautiful life. Yet those who 
know the man's inner life are sure that his 
neighbors are mistaken in their judgment 
concerning him, that he has in him many 
good qualities. He is misunderstood. His 
neighbors' opinion about him are unjust. 
The best in him does not appear. He is re- 
jected by the builders as unfit for any place 

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in the temple. He is not to men's tastes and is 
thrown aside. 

" God! that men would see a little clearer, 
Or judge less harshly when they cannot see. 
God ! that men might draw a little nearer 
To one another. They'd then be nearer thee y 
And understood." 

A strong plea should be made for the mis- 
understood and the unappreciated — and there 
are many of them. They are not taken into 
honored places. They are not elected to of- 
ficial positions, named on committees, nor 
called to act in conspicuous roles. They are 
left to work in obscurity, rejected by the 
builders and cast aside. We can do no better 
service than to become the friends of these 
who miss human favor and appreciation, to 
seek to be discoverers of worth and goodness 
which others overlook, and to strive to bring 
to recognition and into active, useful service 
those who are in danger of being lost, for- 
gotten, passed by and left to failure. 
We should pray that we may see people as 

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God sees them, for he always sees the good, 
the best in everyone. He sees our possibili- 
ties — not what we are to-day, but what we 
may become through love and patience to- 
morrow. We need to learn to be very patient 
with people till the worthy in them comes to 
its best. 

Some fruits are not sweet until the late fall. 
Some people also ripen slowly, and it takes 
a long time before they become sweet, beau- 
tiful, helpful. We should not reject any life, 
because it is not yet beautiful, because it does 
not yet seem lovely. Wait and let God train 
and discipline it in his own way, and some day 
it may be ready to fill an important place. 
The stone which the builders of society would 
reject as unfit, God may want at length as 
one of the finest ornaments in his temple. Let 
us be more patient with people whose faults 
offend us, who seem unfit or unworthy. Per- 
haps their faults are only unripenesses, or 
perhaps they are not faults at all, only in- 
dividualities, which will prove to be elements 
of strength and beauty when the persons 

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jHtetmtietgtooD 



find their true recognition. God has a place 
and a work for everyone. There will be a 
place by and by for the misunderstood life, 
and the stone which the builders despise God 
will use to be the head of the corner some- 
where. 

Sometimes it is God himself that is misun- 
derstood. Troubles come into our lives, and 
we ask, "Is God really always good? Does 
he indeed never cease to be kind? Does he 
care? Does he feel with us in our griefs and 
disappointments? Has he an interest in our 
lives ? If he is our Father and cares, why does 
he permit us to suffer so ? " We are in danger 
of misunderstanding God and not accepting 
the love and care which are in his heart 
for us. 

But God's work with us is not yet finished. 
We misunderstand it because we have not yet 
seen it all. It is not just to criticise a picture 
when the artist's work is not completed. 
Sometimes you read a story, and at the end 
of a certain chapter all seems wrong. If the 
book ended there you would feel that God was 

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not kind. But there are other chapters yet 
to come, and as you read on, you learn how 
good came out of all that seemed hard, even 
unjust. Lives are serial stories. We may tell 
the bereft one who is questioning the divine 
goodness in the providence which so emptied 
her life, that God will stay with her, comfort 
her, and help her, causing all things to work 
together for good, and that some day she will 
find the love which she cannot now see. If 
the story of Joseph had closed with the sale 
of the boy into Egypt, or when he was cast 
into the dungeon on a false accusation, we 
could not have claimed that good is the final 
outcome of God's care. We must finish the 
story and then we shall find that there is a 
Hand which directs all human affairs and 
brings good out of all evil. 
Many times we think our circumstances in life 
anything but kindly. It does not seem to us 
possible that these rough, unseemly things 
can be built into the temple of our lives as 
beautiful stones. In our experiences there may 
be some threatening loss, some bitter trial im- 

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pending, or some painful thing that has al- 
ready come upon us which we feel we cannot 
possibly build into the perfect temple. Yet 
this may be the very stone which God had 
prepared for the most important place in all 
the building. Some day you will say of it, 
" The stone which I, the builder, would have 
rejected, has become the head of the corner. 
This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous 
in my eyes." 

Do not reject, then, the experiences of sor- 
row, pain, adversity. You do not see how 
these can become a good, a joy, a blessing in 
your life. But wait till God has worked out 
his plan to completion. The divine purpose 
in all providences is to make men, and all his 
making is very good. Doubt not, therefore, 
that the very stone which to your eye and 
thought seems so unfit, so unsuitable for 
building into the temple of your life, God 
will use to fill an essential place by and by, 
perhaps to be the chiefest adornment in your 
character when complete. 
Our Lord in the Gospels used the incident of 

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the rejected stone as applying to himself. He 
was the stone which the builders rejected, but 
which God made to be the head of the corner. 
The rulers had a mistaken idea of the Mes- 
siah. They thought he would be a mighty 
earthly king, who would free them from their 
subject condition and make them a great na- 
tion that should conquer the whole world. 
They had not learned the sacrificial idea of 
the Messiah, given in such prophecies as the 
fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. So when Jesus 
came, lowly, meek, loving, unresisting, they 
did not believe that he was the promised Mes- 
siah and would not accept him. They mis- 
understood him. 

There are many people to-day who do not 
approve of Christ. They do not like his way 
of helping and saving. They do not think he 
is the Friend they need. The life to which he 
invites them does not attract them. They do 
not think he can lead them to the best things, 
the best character, the deepest joy, the truest 
usefulness. In the tradition, there came a day 
when one particular stone was needed, must 

[184] 



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be had, or the building would not stand com- 
plete. Then the stone which had been de- 
spised, which had been thrown away, proved 
to be the only one that would fit and fill the 
place. The teaching is simple and plain. Men 
despise and reject Jesus Christ, but there will 
come a time when no one but Christ will fit 
into their soul's need. 

For example, Saul did not think Jesus was the 
Messiah. He was sincere and conscientious in 
his persecution of him. He regarded him as 
an impostor and rejected him. He sought to 
destroy all who believed on him. He thought 
he was pleasing God in his persecutions. One 
day near Damascus he had a wonderful vision. 
He saw a divine Being shining in heavenly 
glory. He was startled, amazed, and fell to 
the earth. " Who art thou, Lord? " he asked. 
" I am Jesus," was the answer. Instantly Saul 
saw that Jesus was no impostor, but the Son 
of God. He accepted him now as the Messiah. 
From that moment Jesus took the supreme 
place in Saul's life. The stone which the 
builders rejected became the head of the cor- 

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ner, the glory of his life, the hope of his 

soul. 

They only misunderstand Christ who think he 

is not all they need. Your life will always be 

incomplete, unfinished, until Christ is received 

into his own place in it. 



[186] 



^ettotce ?£ecUne& 



[187] 



"I would have gone ; God bade me stay ; 

I would have worked ; God bade me rest. 
He broke my will from day to day, 

He read my yearnings unexpressed, 
And said them nay. 

"Now I would stay ; God bids me go : 
Now I would rest ; God bids me work. 

He breaks my heart, tossed to and fro, 
My soul is wrung with doubts that lurk 

And vex it so. 

"I go, Lord, where thou sendest me ; 

Day after day I plod and moil : 
But, Christ my God, when will it be 

That I may let alone my toil, 
And rest in thee?" 



[188] 



CHAPTER FOURTEENTH 




T seems strange to have God 
refuse service offered to him. 
David had been king for a 
number of years and had 
built for himself a house of 
cedar. One day as he sat in 
his luxurious home, a shadow fell over him. 
He began to feel a sense of shame as he 
thought of the fine house he had built for 
himself, and then, in contrast, thought of the 
weather-beaten tent in which the ark of God 
was dwelling. He felt that a dwelling place 
should be provided for the holy ark at least 
as costly and as beautiful as the house in 
which he himself was living. 
We get a lesson right here for ourselves. We 
ought not to think of our own comfort and 
then give no thought to God and his work. 
There is no word of Scripture which forbids 
us to live comfortably ourselves. But when 

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we are able to do well for ourselves, we may 
not rob God, nor stint his service. A house 
of cedar for our own home, and an old tat- 
tered tent for God is not fit, not worthy. Job 
speaks deprecatingly of eating one's morsel 
alone while the fatherless shared it not. If 
we use only for ourselves the comforts we 
have, not thinking of those who have not the 
bread of life, we are living unworthily. 

"' If I have eaten my morsel alone ! ' 
The patriarch spoke in scorn. 
What would he think of the church, were he 
shown 
Heathendom, huge, forlorn, 
Godless, Christless, with soul unfed, 
While the church's ailment is fullness of bread, 
Eating her morsel alone ? 

" i I am debtor alike to the Jew and the Greek ; ' 
The mighty apostle cried ; 
Traversing continents souls to seek, 

For the love of the Crucified. 
Centuries, centuries, since have sped ; 
Millions are famishing, we have bread, 
But we eat our morsel alone. 
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u ' Freely, as ye have received, so give/ 
He bade who hath given us all. 
How shall the soul in us longer live, 

Deaf to their starving call 
For whom the blood of the Lord was shed, 
And his body broken to give them bread, 
If we eat our morsel alone ? " 

It seems pathetic to read that after David had 
conceived such a noble thought for the honor 
of God, God declined to let him carry it out. 
" Thou shalt not build me a house." Yet as 
we read the story through, we see that the 
decision was right. David was not blamed for 
his desire. Indeed, his thought was accepted. 
God did not refuse the temple — he approved 
it. He only said that David should not build 
it. There may be some noble work you long 
to do. It may not be permitted to you to do 
it, yet it is commendable and will be done by 
another. We should be content with our own 
place in life, and our own work. We should 
not fret because we are not allowed to do 
some particular piece of work that we had set 
our hearts on doing. It is glory enough to 

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have anything, even the smallest task, to do 
in the building of God's great temple. If some 
other one has a part which seems greater, 
more conspicuous, we need not complain. We 
ought to be satisfied to have the beautiful 
work done, whoever may do it. Whittier's 
lines tell the story: 

Others shall sing the song, 
Others shall right the wrong. 
Finish what I begin, 
And all I jail of win. 

What matter I or they, 
Mine, or another's day, 
So the right word is said 
And life the sweeter made f 

Hail to the coming singers ! 
Hail to the brave light-bring ers ! 
Forward I reach and share 
All that they sing and dare. 

The Lord also encouraged David by the as- 
surance that while he would not be permitted 
to build the temple, his desire to do so was 

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approved. " Whereas it was in thy heart to 
build a house for my name, thou didst well 
that it was in thy heart." David's purpose 
received divine commendation. God took the 
will for the deed. 

We all have our limitations. Our minds are 
greater than our powers to achieve. As one 
suggests, we think in marble and build in 
brick. Of only one Man who ever lived could 
it be said that he had accomplished all that 
had been given him to do. None but Jesus 
Christ ever made his achievements up to his 
dreams and intentions. No one of us has lived 
as nobly or has wrought as finely as we 
intended to do. We have not the skill to fash- 
ion all the loveliness that our souls dream. 
No poet writes in his verse all the beauty of 
thought that shines in his glowing mind — his 
pen is not equal to the task. No artist puts 
upon his canvas all the splendor he conceives 
in his vision. No one of us is as good any 
day as we meant to be when we bowed in our 
morning prayer. But it is well the beauty 
is in our heart, that we mean to please God. 

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God accepts what we want to do as if it were 
done. 

" God finishes the work by noble souls begun. 9 * 

God treated David very graciously when he 
declined the service David offered him. God 
is a most gentle Master. His No is sweeter 
and more cheering than the Yes of other 
masters. He could not accept David's desire 
to build a temple, but he so lifted up his 
heart with joy and hope that he almost for- 
got his disappointment. David could not 
build the temple but, instead, God would 
build him a house, that is, make him the 
head of a line of kings, ending at last in 
the Messiah. Whatever disappointment he 
had at God's declining the service he meant 
to do, he is made now to rejoice at God's won- 
derful goodness. 

All of us sometimes have our desires and 
hopes thwarted. The things we want to do 
for God he declines to have us do. The re- 
quests we make of him he will not grant to 

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us. The temple we seek to build for him he 
will not allow us to build. Earnest prayers of 
ours he will return unanswered. But he will 
deal with us so patiently, so graciously, so 
gently, with such kindness, in declining our 
wishes, that we will forget our requests have 
been declined. 

It is told of President Lincoln that in one of 
the dark days of the Civil War a poor woman 
came to plead that her husband or one of her 
five sons in the army might be released to care 
for the little farm and be a comfort to her. 
Mr. Lincoln spoke to her with deep emotion 
of the great crisis through which the country 
was passing, telling her that not one soldier 
could be spared. Then he spoke of the noble 
part she was doing in sparing her husband 
and all her sons to the country. He told her 
he thought that in the great need she would 
not want to take back even one of them. As 
she listened, her patriotism rose, and she with- 
drew her request, and went back home to 
share loyally and gladly in the saving of the 
country. So it is that God appeals to us when 

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we seek relief from crosses or sorrows, until 
we are ready for his sake to go on in our 
life of greatest self-denial and sacrifice. Our 
unanswered prayers seem better than if they 
were answered. We are not permitted to build 
the temple for God, to render the service we 
wanted to render, but we are able to rejoice 
and praise, seeing that God's way is better 
than ours. 

We may learn then to take our place in the 
plan of God and to do what he has purposed 
for us to do. No one can do everything. 
God's plan for no life is large, because no one 
is able to do much. We think we can do great 
things, but when we try we soon find that we 
are very small and can do but little. The best 
and greatest of us are only little fragments 
of men. One can do one little piece of work, 
another can do another little bit. " There are 
no all-round men." All that most of us can 
do is to start one little thing in the world. 
All God expects of any of us is just some 
fragment of the whole. All that some of us 
can do is to have a good purpose in our heart 

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which some other, wiser and better than we, 
coming after us may work out. This is a 
great world and its vast work is one ; all any 
of us can do is just a few strokes, a block 
or two in the wall, a touch in the adornment 
of some panel, or perhaps only a word of 
cheer to the builders. 

Yet no life is unimportant. The smallest in- 
dividual life has its essential place. If you 
drop out, no matter how little the place you 
fill, you will leave that place empty. Our part 
then is simple faithfulness. Accept your place 
in life and the work that is given you to do. 
Have large plans and great purposes. Seek 
to build temples for God. But if he declines 
the service you offer, do not fret, do not be 
discouraged. Perhaps your limitations may 
make it impossible for you to do the thing 
you long to do. One would preach, but lacks 
the qualities that are essential in a preacher. 
One would go as a missionary to a heathen 
land, but he has not the strength for en- 
durance, and his consecration is declined. A 
young man offered himself as a volunteer 

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missionary. He was almost ready to go to 
the field when his father died and it became 
his duty to stay at home and care for his 
widowed mother and the children ; so his de- 
votion to missionary work must be given up. 
He grieved, but the other duty was as sa- 
cred as the missionary service could have 
been. 

Life is full of rejected service, of thwarted in- 
tentions. Thousands and thousands of peo- 
ple are not permitted to do the things they 
had set their hearts on doing. What then? 
Let them do what God plans for them to do 
instead of what they had planned for them- 
selves. The thing you thought you were made 
to do, was really some other one's task, as the 
temple was Solomon's work, not David's. Mr. 
Sill, in a lit.tle poem, puts it thus : 

Fret not that the day is gone 
And thy task is still undone. 
'Twas not thine, it seems, at all : 
Near to thee it chanced to fall, 
Close enough to stir thy brain 
And vex thy heart in vain. 
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^etttce ^eclttteD 



Somewhere, in a nook forlorn, 
Yesterday a babe was born : 
He shall do thy waiting task ; 
All thy questions he shall ask, 
And the answers will be given, 
Whispered lightly out of heaven. 

• • • • • 

'Tis enough of joy for thee 
His high purpose to foresee. 

Sitting in our house of cedar, with marvelous 
goodness filling all our life, let us look out 
and see the needs of God's work about us. Let 
us think of the many things which wait for 
loving hearts and willing hands and promise 
God our best, all we can do. Let him choose 
what he would have us do, and because our 
particular dream of service is declined, let us 
not fold our hands and close our heart — 
rather let us pour out our life in the work 
the Master sets for us to do. 



[W9] 



l£ot» Can &t ftnoto ? 



[ 201 ] 



"J -find enough good people in the world to make me 
think God is good, though a few years ago there was a 
period in my life when I wondered if God had not for- 
gotten me, or if he was just. 17 — Private Letter. 



[ 202 ] 



CHAPTER FIFTEENTH 

I^oto Can Wt ftnotxj? 




ESUS had just said, " If ye 
had known me, ye would 
have known my Father 
also: from henceforth ye 
have known him, and have 
seen him." The words be- 
wildered Philip. He could not understand 
them. " Ye have seen the Father," Jesus 
had said. That was just what Philip was 
longing for — to see the Father. So he in- 
terrupted the Master, saying, " Lord, show 
us the Father." He wished that Jesus might 
make the mystery plainer. 
There are many sincere Christians who have 
the same desire that Philip expressed. They 
long for clearer, fuller revealing of God. A 
writer in a religious paper tells of two girls 
walking home from their work one evening, 
talking earnestly together. One of them was 
overheard saying to the other, " Yes, but 

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why has no one ever seen God?" This was 
all the gentleman heard, as he stood waiting 
for his car, but even this single sentence 
showed what had been the burden of the con- 
versation. Evidently the girls had been talk- 
ing about the apparent unreality of spiritual 
things. Why had nobody ever seen God? 
They had heard a great deal about God, his 
love, his care, his interest in human lives and 
affairs, and his promises of help and direc- 
tion, but they had never had even a glimpse 
of him. How could they know that all they 
had heard about him was true? How could 
they be sure that there really is a God? Had 
anybody ever seen him? How then could they 
know that the things of the Christian faith 
and hope were realities? 

In a private letter from an earnest Christian 
the longing takes this form : " For the last 
month or more I have been drifting away 
from God and have not been able to drop 
anchor. The more I read and study the life 
of Jesus, the farther I seem to drift. I find 
myself asking the question continually, ' Are 

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foto Can m imoto? 

all these things true? They certainly are 
beautiful to read about, but are they true? 
How do we know they are true ? ' " 
There is nothing wrong in such feeling as this 
writer expresses. Philip, Christ's apostle, felt 
the same yearning. There come times in the 
life of almost every thoughtful Christian man 
and woman when such questions arise. " Is 
there a God who is our Father? Does God 
really love me ? If he does, why must I suffer 
so?" Christ is not impatient with our ques- 
tions when we cannot understand. We remem- 
ber his wonderful gentleness with Thomas 
when that disciple could not accept the fact 
of his Master's resurrection. Jesus was not 
grieved with Thomas. He dealt with his doubt 
patiently, he showed him his hands with the 
nail prints, and thus proved to him that he 
was indeed risen. He wants us, also, to bring 
our questions to him, and he will answer them 
for us and give us joy and peace. 
It is not surprising, either, if sometimes we 
cannot understand the mysteries of the Chris- 
tian faith. All life is full of things too hard 

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for us to comprehend. Can you tell how on 
the bush in your garden on which in March 
are only briars will be in June clusters of 
glorious roses? Can you tell how the food 
eaten to-day will be to-morrow in the labor- 
ing man strength for work, in the poet beau- 
tiful fancies, in the singer sweet songs? A 
great botanist said there was mystery enough 
in a handful of moss to give one a whole life- 
time of study. There are really few things 
anywhere that we can fully understand. How 
does the eye see? How does the ear hear? 
How does the nose smell? How can the wire- 
less instrument on a ship in mid-ocean send a 
message which the operator on the coast re- 
ceives and reads? We wonder at these things, 
but we do not doubt them. Why, then, should 
we question the fact that as a mother, the 
other night, stood by her sick child when the 
little one was hovering between life and death, 
and pleaded with God, her prayer reached the 
ear of the heavenly Father? Why should we 
doubt that God loves us when we believe that 
our human friends love us? You cannot see 

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fott) Can Wt ftnoto? 

the love in your friend's heart. You say the 
friend is true, patient, kind, that he is a tower 
of strength to you. You cannot see these 
qualities in him, but you do not question their 
existence. Your friend travels abroad, and 
you cannot be with him to see that he is faith- 
ful to you. You do not have anyone to watch 
him when he is absent ; how, then, do you know 
that he is true? You believe in him. Can you 
not believe also in God, whom you do not 
see? Is the fact that you cannot understand 
the divine love any reason for your not be- 
lieving in it? 

We say God does not manifest himself to us, 
but he does reveal himself far more actually 
than we think. There is a picture of Augus- 
tine and his mother which represents them 
looking up to heaven with deep longing and 
great eagerness, as if listening for some- 
thing. One is saying, " If God would only 
speak to us ! " and the other replies, " Per- 
haps he is speaking to us now and we do not 
hear him ! " 

Philip said, " Lord, show us the Father," and 

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Jesus replied, " Have I been so long time 
with you, and dost thou not know me, Philip? 
He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; 
how sayest thou, Show us the Father ? " 
Philip thought he had never seen the Father, 
and Jesus told him he had been seeing the 
Father in him for three years. What Philip 
had in mind was some revealing of visible 
glory, some outshining of majesty and splen- 
dor, a transfiguration — that was the way he 
thought God must appear. When Jesus said, 
" He that hath seen me hath seen the Father," 
he referred to his daily life with his disciples. 
The very purpose of the Incarnation was to 
show God to men in a common everyday hu- 
man life, which they could understand. Jesus 
was showing God to men when he was patient 
with their dullness, gentle with their faults, 
long-suffering and merciful with their sins, 
compassionate toward their sorrows. 
We see God continually in the same familiar 
ways. A writer says that most men are re- 
ligious when they look upon the faces of their 
dead babies. The materialism which at other 

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foto Can Wt imoto? 

times infects them with doubts of immortality, 
drops away from them in this holy hour. 

" There's a narrow ridge in the graveyard 
Would scarce stay a child in its race ; 
But to me and my thought it is wider 
Than the star-sown vagues of space." 

People say, " If we could see miracles we 
would believe." But it was not miracles to 
which Jesus referred in his own life when he 
said he had been revealing the Father all the 
time he had been with the disciples. He re- 
ferred to the kindnesses he had shown, and 
the gentle things he had done continually in 
his associations with the people in the common 
life of his everydays. 

Have you never seen God? If you think of 
God as only burning majesty, shining glory, 
you will say, " No, I never saw God." But 
the splendor of Sinai clouds and flaming fires 
is not God — God is love. You remember Eli- 
jah's vision on Horeb. A great wind swept 
through the mountains, but God was not in 

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the wind. An earthquake made the hills trem- 
ble, but God was not in the earthquake. A 
fire swept down among the crags, but God 
was not in the fire. Then came a still, small 
voice, a sound of gentle stillness breathing 
through space, and that was God. You have 
really seen God a thousand times in love, in 
peace, in goodness. You have seen him in 
daily providential care, in the sweet things of 
your home, in sacred friendships, and in 
countless revealings of goodness. Think how 
you have been blessed all your life in many 
ways. Do not call it chance, or luck — there 
is no such thing. You ask, " Why has no one 
ever seen God?" You were in danger the 
other day and a mysterious protection shel- 
tered you from harm. You had a great sor- 
row which you thought you could not pos- 
sibly endure, and there came a sweet comfort 
which filled your heart with peace. There was 
a strange tangle of affairs which seemed about 
to wreck everything in your life, and it was 
all straightened out as by invisible hands, in 
a way you never dreamed of. You had a 

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I^oto Can Wt ftnot»? 

crushing loss which seemed about to over- 
whelm you, and lo, the loss proved a gain. 
You were wrongly treated by a pretended 
friend, and the stars all seemed to have gone 
out of your sky. To-day you are quietly 
praising God for it all, for it delivered you 
from what would have been a terrible misfor- 
tune, and gave you instead a true friendship, 
a rich happiness which fills all your life. You 
had a painful sickness which shut you away in 
the darkness for weeks, and you thought it a 
sore experience. To-day you thank God for 
it, for you learned new lessons in the dark- 
ness. All your years have been full of great 
deliverances, remarkable guidances, gentle 
comforts, answered prayers, sweet friend- 
ships, divine love and care. Yet you say you 
have never seen God, and you ask, " How 
may I know that the beautiful things which 
the New Testament tells me about Christ are 
true?" 

How may we learn the reality of spiritual 
things? Only by experience. In one of the 
Psalms are these words, " They that know thy 

[211] 



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name will put their trust in thee." Human 
friendships are formed in experience. We 
meet one we have never seen before. Little by 
little we learn to know him, finding in him 
qualities which please us, and coming at 
length to love and trust him as a friend. In 
the same way only can we learn to know and 
love God. We read of his goodness, his jus- 
tice, his truth, his lovingkindness, his faith- 
fulness. But we must come into personal rela- 
tions with him before we can know that these 
qualities are in him. We can learn to know 
him only in experience. 

The story of Lady Aberdeen's conversion to 
Christ is very suggestive. She was long in 
doubt — wavering, indecisive, not knowing 
what to do. In the time of her perplexity she 
sat one day under a tree in her garden, in 
deep thought. She had been asking, " How 
can I know that these things are true? Is 
Christ real? " She could not be sure. " Act 
as if I were," said a mystic voice, " and you 
will find that I am." Nothing could have 
been more fair or reasonable. She did not 

[ 212 ] 



fotu Can Wt ftnot»? 

stay to ask whether the voice she heard was 
real and divine, or only an illusion. To her 
it was the voice of Christ, and he was bid- 
ding her try him. " Act as if I were. You 
do not know whether I am or not. I offer 
you life, rest, joy, peace; you do not know 
whether there are such blessings or not. 
Act as if there were. Test my promises. 
Try me." She did, and she was not disap- 
pointed. 

How do we know that these invisible things 
are real? How do we know that God is real, 
that there is a God? Some one asked a de- 
vout Arab this question. The sun was just 
setting, pouring its glorious beams in floods 
over the desert. He answered, " How do I 
know whether it was a man or a camel that 
passed my tent last night? I know by the 
footprints." Then flinging his arm toward 
the setting sun, he asked, " Whose footprint 
is that? " We need not seek proofs that there 
is a God; the Bible offers none. How do we 
know the character of God? The Bible does 
not tell us what it is. When Philip asked, 

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" Lord, show us the Father/ 5 Jesus replied, 
" He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." 
In Jesus Christ, therefore, we see God. He 
was the highest, fullest revelation that God 
made of himself. Look at Christ and you will 
see God. 

Let no one think that God wants to hide him- 
self, wants to be only dimly, obscurely seen. 
He wants his friendship with us to be real 
and close. He does not want us to walk in 
darkness, to grope in gloom. He does not 
want to be unreal to us. He wants us to know 
him as we know no other friend. He wants 
prayer to be real to us, to be as real as talk 
with any human friend, as the child's talk with 
its mother. But do we know that these things 
are real ? " They are very beautiful, but are 
they true? " Yes, they are the truest, realest 
things in the world. How shall we make them 
real to ourselves? Christ is real, — he is our 
Saviour, our Master, our Friend. How, then, 
shall we make him more real to our faith? 
Trust him, love him. Some one asked, " How 
can I learn to love Christ more? " " Trust 

[ 214] 



I^oto Can Wt ftnotD? 

him more," was the answer. " How can I 
trust him more ? " " Love him more." Lov- 
ing and trusting go together. The more you 
love him the more will you trust him, and the 
more will you find in him to love. He will 
never disappoint you. There is no human 
friend of whom you can say that. The best, 
the truest, the most faithful will disappoint 
you some time, in something. But Christ 
never has disappointed in the smallest way 
anyone who has trusted him. 



[215] 



?^oe$ d&oD Care? 



[217] 



" And is there not in every day — 

Earth's beauty and sweet love's caress, 
In health, in books, in childhood's day — 
More than enough for happiness ? 

"And though our petty plans jail through, 
All noble deeds that have been done, 
All noble deeds that we may do, 
Shall help the triumph to be won. 

11 Our Shepherd watches where we lie; 
He guards us if we wake or sleep ; 
Green pastures spread before the eye ; 
Still waters in the sunshine sleep.' 9 



[218] 



CHAPTER SIXTEENTH 



?^oe$ <0oU Cat*? 




E like to know that people 
think about us. Even a 
postal card coming in the 
mail from a friend far away, 
saying only, " I am think- 
ing of you," brings you a 
strange uplift. You were sick for a time and 
could not see your friends. On one of your 
lonely days a rose was sent up to your room 
with a card and a message of love, and you 
remember how it cheered you. Some one was 
thinking of you. You were in sorrow and a 
little note came in with just a verse of Scrip- 
ture, or a " God bless you," and a name. It 
was almost as if an angel from heaven had 
visited you, strengthening you. Somebody 
was thinking of you. You have not forgotten 
how it helped j^ou. 

" How precious also are thy thoughts unto 
me, O God ! " So God thinks of you, too. In 

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C^e (Bait "Beautiful 



the previous verses of the Psalm the poet tells 
us that God knows all our thoughts. Here he 
tells us of God's own thoughts for us — he 
thinks of us, thinks of us with love. His 
thoughts are precious, like gold. Then they 
are without number — that is, he does not 
think of us merely once in a while, but con- 
tinually. 

The Bible teaches unmistakably that God 
cares for us. A scientific writer is said to 
have declared that the greatest discovery of 
the twentieth century will be the discovery of 
God, and then it will be known that God does 
not care. It would be very sad if this should 
prove to be true. But we do not need to wait 
for a new discovery of God. The discovery 
has already been made, and God does care. 
Not only are we in God's thoughts, but he 
thinks about us as individuals, not merely 
as a race. The Father never forgets one of 
his children, even the least. Though you are 
cast upon a bare rock in the sea and no 
friend knows where you are, you are in 
God's thought. He is watching and caring. 

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Though you are carrying to-day some secret 
grief or trouble which no one on earth can 
know, he knows, he sympathizes, he is think- 
ing of you. 

" € Among so many, can he care ? 
Can special love be everywhere f ' 
I asked. My soul bethought of this — 
In just that very place of his 
Where he hath put and keepeth you, 
God hath no other thing to do." 

If you actually believe this, all your troubles 
will be made light and life's meaning will all 
be changed for you. 

Providence is full of illustrations of God's 
special thought for his children. In an ad- 
dress made in Glasgow before an Insurance 
and Actuarial Society, on The Incalculable 
Elements of Business, James Byers Black 
told the story of the escape of the one man 
who survived the Tay Bridge disaster, some 
years since. This man left the train when 
it stopped for a moment at Fort Street 

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Station, just before it started on its jour- 
ney to death. His hat blew off and he 
yielded to his impulse to follow it. At that 
instant the train moved off and the man was 
left standing alone at the little wayside sta- 
tion, on a dark, tempestuous night. He was 
vexed and greatly irritated at being thus left 
behind. Within a very few minutes the train 
had crashed through the broken bridge and 
had carried seventy-four persons — everyone 
on board — down to death in the remorseless 
waters of the Tay. The man whose hat blew 
off was the sole survivor of that night's 
tragedy. 

It would be interesting to know this man's 
subsequent history. Why was he spared? 
What jvork was there for him to do? If we 
could understand the mystery of divine provi- 
dence, no doubt we should learn the reason 
why God thought of this man and kept him 
off the ill-fated train. We call this a special 
providence. But was this a providence any 
more than a thousand other things that have 
no tragic importance in our lives? Some one 

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^oejs (Boh Cat*? 



once asked George Macdonald if he believed 
in special providences. He said, " Yes, in the 
providences, but not in the special." Not now 
and then, in some remarkable instance, but in 
every event and occurrence there is a divine 
providence. God is always on the field. Our 
life is full of God. We do not always see his 
hand, but he is never absent. There are no 
accidents, no chances, in life. God thinks of 
us continually and watches over all our move- 
ments. 

We call it a providence when there is a disas- 
ter on the railway and we are not hurt. Is it 
any less a providence when the train runs 
through with no disaster, and we come to our 
destination uninjured? One man asked in a 
meeting that thanks be given because when 
his horse stumbled on the edge of a great 
precipice he escaped being dashed to death. 
Another man arose and asked to be included 
in the thanksgiving because he passed over 
the same mountain road and his horse did not 
stumble. Not only does God deliver us in 
danger, but he guards us from danger. 

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God's thoughts for our life may not always be 
our thoughts, but they are always good 
thoughts. There is a word in Isaiah which 
says, " My thoughts are not your thoughts, 
neither are your ways my ways, saith the 
Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the 
earth, so are my thoughts higher than your 
thoughts." It is God's thought we want for 
our life, rather than our own. God's thought 
for us is higher than ours, that is, wiser, bet- 
ter, safer, than ours. We will all assent to 
this as a theory of life. But when we come to 
the acceptance of God's thought, his way, his 
plan, instead of our own, sometimes we fail. 
We are not willing to accept his thought for 
us. If you were directing your own life, you 
would leave out some disappointment, per- 
haps, some loss or sorrow. You would not 
have had this year's pinching times, or some 
special trial, if you were changing things to 
your mind. But would your life be better 
that way? Perhaps the best things will come 
out of the things you would omit if you 
were planning. 

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?Doe$ d5o& Care? 



"// some things were omitted, or altered as we 

would, 
The whole might be unfitted to work for perfect 

good. 
Our plans may be disjointed, but we may calmly 

rest ; 
What God has once appointed is better than our 

best." 

When we say, " How precious also are thy 
thoughts unto me, O God ! " we should be 
ready to accept them, to yield ourselves to 
them. Have you ever thought what a glori- 
ous thing it is to have God plan for your life, 
to know that he thought about you before 
you were made, and then made you accord- 
ing to his thought? No wonder George Mac- 
donald said he would rather be the being God 
made him to be than the most glorious crea- 
ture he could think of. No possible human 
plan for your life could be half so high, so 
noble, so beautiful, as God's thought for 
you. 

This is true, not only of the plan of our life 
in general, but of each detail of it. We are 

[ 225 ] 



C^e d&ate "Beautiful 



coming all the while to certain experiences 
which so break into our thought for our own 
life that we are startled, and say, " Surely 
this cannot be God's thought for me." Some- 
times we have pleaded with God to withhold 
from us something — some sorrow, some loss, 
some pain — which seemed to be impending, 
and we did not get our request. That which 
impended came on in spite of our prayers 
that it might not come. What really hap- 
pened? God's perfect thought for us at that 
point went on in our life instead of our 
lower thought. And that was best. Our 
desire should always be that God's thought 
shall be realized and not ours. 
One was speaking of unanswered prayer. 
There had been the most passionate pleading 
for something without which it seemed that 
the person's happiness and good would be 
most incomplete. It appeared, indeed, that it 
would be nothing less than disaster if the re- 
quest were not granted. But if it was God's 
thought for the life, it would have been no 
disaster. The disaster would have been the 

[226] 



?Doe$ (tsoa Care? 



granting of my friend's request. " My ways 
are higher than your ways," that is, wiser, 
better, more glorious. One puts it thus : 

" 'Twas long ago, 
When I was young. Alas ! I did not know 
A better way. I said, 'It must be so, 

Or God cannot be good.' 
Alas ! Alas ! my poor weak human pride ! 
How differently would I have quickly cried 

If I had understood. 

u And now I bear 
A thankful heart for that unanswered prayer. 
And so I think it will be when, up there, 

Where all is known, 
We look upon the things ive longed for so, 
And see how little were they worth, and know 

How soon they were outgrown." 

God's thoughts for us are always good. Jere- 
miah, in comforting the exiles in captivit}^ 
said, " I know the thoughts that I think to- 
ward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, 
and not of evil." When you are passing 

[227] 



€^e d&ate I3eautfftil 



through some great sorrow, some overwhelm- 
ing loss, some sore trial, God's thought for 
you always is peace, good, blessing. If only 
we would believe this, if only we would be 
sure of it, whatever the experiences may be, 
nothing ever could disturb us. Has it not 
always been so? God never had a thought 
toward any child of his that was not a 
thought of peace. He always means good 
even in the most painful trials. The cross of 
Christ, terrible as it was, was a thought of 
God and we know what infinite blessing the 
cross brought to the world. Every disap- 
pointment of yours is a thought of love, if 
you understood it. 

" How precious are thy thoughts unto me, 
O God!" What is God's thought for your 
life? Something beautiful, perfect. God's 
thought for you is eternal life — a life of 
blessing and holy service here, and then 
glory. Do not fail to be what God made you 
to be and wants you to be. Do not disap- 
point God. Some people do. His thought for 
them is beauty, love, obedience, holiness, 

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^oejs (Boti Care? 



glory, and at the end they bring him nothing 
but sin, marring, ruin. They reject his 
higher way for them and insist on having 
their own. And the end is disaster, not good 
or blessing. 



1229] 



C^ou ^alt ftnoto f tttaittt 



[231 ] 



"Home ! the safe and blissful shelter where is glad and full 
content, 
And companionship of kindred; and the treasures early 

rent 
From your holding shall be given back more precious 

than before. 
Oh, you will not mind the journey with such blessedness 
in store, 
When the road leads home. 

"Oh, you will not mind the roughness nor the steepness of 
the way, 
Nor the chill, unrested morning, nor the drearness of 

the day ; 
And you will not take a turning to the left or to the right, 
But go straight ahead, nor tremble at the coming of the 
night, 
For the road leads home." 



[ 232 ] 



CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH 



€^ow ^alt ftnot» hereafter 




ETER drew up his feet 
when Jesus was about to 
wash them and said, " Lord, 
dost thou wash my feet?" 
He could not bear to have 
those blessed hands on his 
feet. Jesus insisted, however, and said, 
" What I do thou knowest not now ; but thou 
shalt understand hereafter." There was a 
purpose in what he was doing which Peter 
could not understand. Still he should accept 
the service without question, and sometime 
the reason would appear. 

These words are always on Christ's lips as he 
comes to us in our anxieties, our perplexities 
over the mysteries of life, our sorrows and 
disappointments. " What I am doing you do 
not now understand. It seems to you unneces- 
sary, perhaps even severe and unkind. You 
cannot see goodness and love in it. You can- 

[233] 



€^e (Bate Beautiful 



not conceive how it ever can prove to have 
blessing in it for you. But wait — some day 
you will understand. Then you will find that 
this strange, hard thing is really full of 
love." 

We cannot understand all that God does. 
How could we? Consider his greatness. The- 
ologians tell us that God is infinite, eternal, 
omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient. In the 
first verse of the Bible we are told that God 
created the heavens and the earth, that is, all 
the universe. Our earth itself seems big to us, 
but it is only a mere speck in comparison with 
all that God made. They tell us we can see 
about five or six thousand stars with our 
naked eye on a clear night. Lord Kelvin says 
that in the system right round us there are at 
least a thousand million stars. And these be- 
long only to one little corner of the universe. 
Truly God is great. 

So perfect also are the movements of all the 
stars, planets and moons that there is not a 
moment's variation in their motions. No star 
in all the countless millions is ever a second 

[234 ] 



Ctyou ^alt fcnotD hereafter 

late in rising or setting. Eclipses, transits, 
and conjunctions are calculated centuries in 
advance, and there is never a fraction of a 
second of failure in their occurring. How 
great and wise God is, and how vast are the 
affairs he controls ! Is it any wonder that we 
are puzzled and perplexed sometimes concern- 
ing his dealings with us? Could we expect 
to understand all the reasons for his actions, 
and always to see at once the wisdom and 
beauty in his vast and complex purposes? 
" What I do thou knowest not now" 
We are assured that God has a plan for our 
lives, for each individual life. Jesus had a 
purpose in washing the feet of his disciples 
that night. It was not an idle thing he was 
doing. He meant to teach these men a great 
lesson. He has a purpose in every smallest 
thing, in each event in our lives. Life is full 
of God. His plans run on through all the 
years and are woven of the threads of the 
common events of our lives. We do not know 
the meaning of the small things in our every- 
day experiences, but the least of them is in 

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some way connected with the great divine 
plan. We need to be careful never to fail in 
the smallest duty, for the minutest failure 
may be the dropping of a stitch which will 
leave a marred place in the web of some other 
life, or our own. 

God's plan for each life includes the smallest 
affairs of that life. The things that come into 
our experience are not mere happenings. 
Happen is not a good word. At least we must 
not think that anything conies into our lives 
as a mere happening, without God's knowl- 
edge and permission. Chance is not a good 
word; at least we may not use it to mean 
something that broke into our life inde- 
pendently of God. The old poet's way of put- 
ting it is better : 

" It chanced — Eternal God that chance did guide." 

Nothing ever comes into our experience by 
chance, in the sense that it is outside of God's 
purpose for our life and beyond God's con- 
trol. 

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€^ou ^alt ftnot» hereafter 

Suppose some one wrongs you, treats you 
unkindly, cruelly. Is that wrong or cruelty 
of God's doing? No ; God never did anything 
that was not love. A good woman met with 
two great troubles in a single fortnight. Her 
husband died, leaving his family well pro- 
vided for. Within two weeks the person in 
charge of his estate embezzled his whole for- 
tune, leaving the widow and little children 
without money enough even to pay the fu- 
neral expenses. It is easy to say that the 
death of the husband was God's will. He was 
God's child and his work was done. But can 
we say that the embezzlement was God's will? 
Surely not in the sense that God directed it or 
approved of it. God never is the author of a 
crime. But the moment the sin was com- 
mitted God took it into his hand — " Eternal 
God that chance did guide," and thus it be- 
came part of his plan and began to work for 
good. That was the way God did with the 
crime of the brothers of Joseph — he caused 
it to work for Joseph's good, and for the 
good of his people. That was the way he did 

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with the crime against Jesus — he made it to 
work for the saving and blessing of the world. 
It will be the same in your case if anyone 
wrongs you or treats you unjustly. The 
wrong or the injustice is not God's act, but 
if you are God's child, your Father takes the 
evil into his hands, when it has been com- 
mitted, and it becomes thenceforth, a secret 
of blessing; it will be overruled so as to be 
among the " all things " that work together 
for good. 

We may go a step farther and say that the 
purpose of God is always good, always love. 
It could not be otherwise, for God is love. 
This does not mean that his plan for us never 
involves suffering. Ofttimes it does. It brings 
death to a mother and pain and grief to her 
family. It took the baby out of the young 
mother's arms the other night. It leaves the 
young widow broken-hearted, with little chil- 
dren to provide for. It permits loss of prop- 
erty to come, leaving a family to suffer pinch- 
ing want and hard struggle. It allows a man 
to lose his work in the time of financial de- 

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€^ou ^alt ftnoto l$mafttv 

pression and to endure experience of sore 
need. It brings sickness with its pain and 
cost. It lets us have bitter days of suffering. 
Saintly people ofttimes have to endure things 
which are hard and most trying. Neverthe- 
less, the plan of God for our lives is good. 
It is a plan of love. " What I do " — it is 
the Master who says this, and what he does 
must be good. 

Is affliction good? Can it be good to endure 
bereavement, to suffer injustice, to bear pain? 
Some day we shall know that many of the 
best things in life are the fruit of these very 
experiences. The world's redemption comes 
from the sorrow and suffering of Jesus 
Christ. The best blessings and the holiest 
beauties of God's saints are the harvest of 
pain. The pleasant things are the easiest for 
us to accept — and these, too, are parts of 
Christ's purpose. We must not think that his 
will always means hard things. Some people 
always say, " Thy will be done," as if God's 
will were something terrible. But we have a 
thousand glad experiences in life to one that 

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is sad, a thousand days of bright blue skies 
to the one that is dark and cloudy. And the 
joyous things bring their blessings, too. We 
must not get the impression that all the sa- 
cred things of Christian life come through 
pain, that we are enriched and made more 
worthy only when we are suffering. We re- 
ceive countless joys. The sunshine, too, is 
full of love and full of life. 
But we must not forget that the things which 
are painful are also parts of Christ's chosen 
way for us, and that they are always good. 
In all our life Christ is making us — making 
men of us, fashioning character, transforming 
us into moral and physical beauty. In the 
Hebrews there is a wonderful word which says 
that Jesus himself was made perfect through 
suffering. Let not life's pains and trials dis- 
may you. Submit to God, accept the provi- 
dences that come as part of his discipline and 
take the good, the lessons, the enrichings 
which he sends. Some day you will know that 
you have learned many of your sweetest 
songs in the darkness. 

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C^ou ^alt ftnoto f maftzt 

In the advertising circular that came with a 
new canary bird, there is a description of the 
way the birds are educated. They are raised 
in the peasant districts of Germany. When 
they are to be trained, each bird is put in a 
little box cage, with only a small hole to give 
him just light enough to see to eat and drink. 
These cages are then put in a room from 
which all light is excluded, and their teacher 
gives the birds a lesson every two hours. 
First they get a lesson on the flute, then on 
the violin, then on bells, and last of all a 
nightingale is brought in to sing its wonder- 
ful notes and then to teach the birds to sing 
at night. 

The point to be noted is that the birds must 
be taught their lessons in the darkness. They 
would not learn them in the light. It is with 
many people also as with the birds. There 
are certain songs we cannot learn to sing in 
the sunshine. So the great Teacher calls us 
apart and shuts the door, to keep out the 
light and exclude the world's noises and then 
teaches us the songs of peace, of joy, of trust, 

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of peace, of love. Thus painful things of 
life have their place in the divine training 
of our lives. 

But all the mysteries in our lives will some 
day be revealed. They will not always be in- 
explicable to us. " What I do thou knowest 
not now; but thou shalt understand here- 
after." We do not see now how this or that 
experience can be well and can do good, but 
after a time the mystery is explained. " All 
chastening seemeth for the present to be not 
joyous but grievous; yet afterward it yield- 
eth peaceable fruit." The plow cuts rudely 
through the field. It seems only destructive. 
But afterwards there waves a harvest of 
golden grain where all seemed ruin at first. 
It is only afterwards that many of God's 
providences can be clearly understood. It 
takes time for the full meaning to be wrought 
out. We do not know in the days of sorrow 
what shining blessing will be revealed as the 
final outcome. We do not see in midwinter 
the roses that are hidden under the snow, 
which after a while will unfold their beauty. 

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€$ou ^alt ftnotD f tnaittv 

" The year is young. It does not know 
What roses sleep beneath the snow, 
Waiting for June's soft breeze to blow. 
Our souls are young. We do not know 
What power is ours for joy or woe. 
We wait. Another life will show." 

There is a distinct promise that the mysteries 
of life will be made clear sometime. Ofttimes 
this is realized soon. There are some of life's 
mysteries, however, which are never made 
plain in this present world. Life is too short. 
Men and women die sometimes with perplexi- 
ties unexplained. But there is another life. 
We are immortal. We shall live a thousand 
years, ten thousand years, after leaving earth. 
There will be time enough then for the deep- 
est mysteries to be made plain. 
" What I do thou knowest not now ; but thou 
shalt understand hereafter." Believe this. Be- 
lieve that the clouds will lift and that a whole 
heavenful of sunshine and blue sky will ap- 
pear. Believe that beyond to-day's sorrow 
and out of it will come comfort and joy. Be- 
lieve that to-day's stress and strain, pinching 

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and anxiety, will pass away and that you will 
have rest, plenty and gladness. Believe that 
your present burdens will become wings to 
lift you upward into the blessings of eternal 
life. Believe that the buds under the snow 
will be glorious roses in a little while. 



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%ty practice of gjmmortatft? 



[ 245 ] 



" To live for common ends is to be common, 
The highest faith makes still the highest man t 
For we grow like the things our souls believe, 
And rise or sink as we aim high or low. 
No mirror shows such likeness of the face 
As faith we live by of the heart and mind. 
We are in very truth that which we love, 
And love, like noblest deeds, is born of faith." 



[246] 



CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH 



%ty practice of immortalit? 




EARLY everybody believes 
in immortality, although 
not everyone is enthusiastic 
over the subject. Not long 
since, when a distinguished 
man was asked if he be- 
lieved in personal immortality, he is said to 
have answered : " Yes, I cannot help believing 
in it. Everything points to it. But I do not 
want it." He does not accept the Christian 
faith, and yet he believes that man is immor- 
tal. But the belief has no comfort for him. 
He does not want to live forever. Immortal- 
ity, however, is not merely continuance of life 
forever — that alone might give no joy. Some 
lives have been so sad here that the thought 
of living ten thousand years in the same way 
would be intolerable. There is a story of one 
who prayed that he might never die, but for- 
got to pray that he might not grow old. His 

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prayer was granted, and he lived on century 
after century, becoming more and more feeble 
continually, all the infirmities of age increas- 
ing in their burdensomeness until he prayed 
to die. Mere prolonged life would not be a 
blessing. We must die to attain an immor- 
tality of blessedness. " This corruptible must 
put on incorruption. . . . Then shall come 
to pass the saying that is written, Death is 
swallowed up in victory." 
But immortality ought to have a meaning for 
us now while we are in this world. We say we 
are immortal — how then should an immortal 
man or woman live here and now? We have 
the answer suggested in one of St. Paul's 
epistles. The writer is speaking of Christ's 
resurrection, and he says that believers are 
risen too, in Christ. Then he adds, " If then 
ye were raised together with Christ, seek the 
things that are above, where Christ is." That 
is, you are risen with Christ. You have not 
gone to heaven with him yet. He has left you 
here for a while. You have a work to do in 
this world for him, and there is also a work to 

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C^e practice of gjmmortalit? 

be done in you before you will be ready for 
heaven. But you are to remember that you 
are now risen with Christ, and are now living 
the resurrection life. What sort of a life 
ought that to be? The question is not, " What 
sort of a life will you live when you get to 
heaven?" but "What kind of a life should 
you live right here, right now, in the present 
world?" 

When Jesus was speaking of eternal life 
which those who believed should enter into, he 
said, " He that heareth my word, and believ- 
eth him that sent me, hath eternal life." He 
did not say, " He will have eternal life when 
he enters heaven," but he " hath it," that is, 
from the moment he believes. He is not to 
wait till he reaches heaven before he begins 
to live his eternal life. He is on the earth yet 
and cannot get away from his earthly rela- 
tions. He must take up his tasks, he must do 
his duties — having eternal life does not re- 
lease him from these. He is to practice eter- 
nal life now and continually. 
If you die to-morrow, being a child of God, 

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you will enter at once upon the heavenly life. 
We do not know just what the heavenly life 
is, but we do know that it is loving, unselfish, 
holy, without sin. It is joyous. It is con- 
tented. We cannot think of anyone in heaven 
being unhappy, discontented, fretful. No- 
body there grumbles, complains, is a mur- 
murer. Nobody in heaven ever worries. When 
you die and go to heaven, you will begin at 
once to live as other people in heaven live. 
You will find it easy to fall into the heavenly 
habits. Heaven is a holy place. Nobody sins 
there, nobody lies, nobody gets angry, no- 
body does a mean thing, nobody speaks evil 
of another. If you die to-night and go to 
heaven, you will begin to live to-morrow 
morning the heavenly life. 
But if you do not die to-night, but stay in this 
world longer, living the eternal life will mean 
that you shall rise to-morrow morning and 
live that life here, wherever you may be, 
and live it just as you would do if you 
had died and lived now in heaven. In the 
story of our Lord's last night with his dis- 

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C^e practice of immortality 

ciples, we have this remarkable statement, 
" Knowing that he came forth from God, and 
goeth unto God, he took a towel and girded 
himself and began to wash the disciples' feet." 
He knew the glorious being he was, that he 
was the Son of God, divine, and yet, with this 
consciousness fully in his mind, he performed 
the lowliest service for his disciples that any 
man could do for others. 

You know that you are risen with Christ, that 
you are immortal, that you have eternal life ; 
now what are fit things for one to do who 
knows that there is such glory, such splendor 
in his life? First of all, no service of love is 
beneath him. His life should be devoted to the 
sweetest, most helpful ministries of kindness 
that his hand can find to do. 
John the Baptist, in the gloom of his dun- 
geon at Machaerus, began to wonder if after 
all Jesus was the Messiah, and sent some of 
his disciples to ask him. When the men came, 
Jesus did not enter upon a set programme to 
show his deity — he just went on with his 
everyday work of kindness and then told the 

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men to go back to their master and tell him 
what they had seen and heard — the blind re- 
ceive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are 
cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, 
and the poor have good tidings preached 
unto them. These were the truest and best 
evidences of Messiahship. That is the way 
the man who knew he was the Son of God 
lived his common days. 

For another thing, Jesus, knowing his divine 
glory, did not separate himself from other 
people to show that he was not an ordinary 
man. He did not live in a way that would 
demonstrate to the world his divine character 
in unearthly ways. He took his place among 
workingmen. He was a carpenter, and for 
eighteen years wrought at his lowly trade. It 
scarcely seems to us quite fitting that the Son 
of God should be a carpenter, but there was 
nothing undivine in that. It left no dishonor 
on him, and indeed it made his glory all the 
more radiant. In all his earthly life we see 
in Jesus his divine life. He was always prac- 
ticing immortality, living eternal life. This 

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€^e practice of 31mmortaliti? 

suggests to us how we may live the heavenly 
life here. We may not do it in any strained 
or unnatural efforts at holiness or heavenli- 
ness, but by doing the will of God in the sim- 
plest way, which will always mean the com- 
mon tasks and duties of the days as they come 
to us. The heavenliest life we can live here 
will be the one that will best fulfill our com- 
mon duties in our natural relationships. 

" Do to-day the nearest duty. 
Our work counts for more than talk. 
Three things are great : 
Conscience^ and will and courage to 
Fulfill the duties they create." 

We, too, may live the resurrection, life in the 
shop, at a trade, in the kitchen, in any lowly 
work or calling. Doing the will of God wher- 
ever we may be is the immortal life. 
The Apocryphal Gospels are a number of 
stories about Jesus written by men who 
thought that a divine being never should do 
anything natural or common. So they in- 

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vented stories of childish miracles that they 
said he did when he was a boy. The true Gos- 
pels, however, show Jesus like other children 
in his childhood, without anything fantastic, 
finding his Father's business in being a duti- 
ful son, living a sweet, sinless life, doing no 
miracle, and working at the carpenter's trade. 
Then even the greatest miracles in his public 
life were never unnatural, or showy, but sim- 
ply deeds of love. You may learn from your 
Master that eternal life in this world is a life 
of kindness, gentleness, usefulness, unselfish- 
ness. Holiness is not dignity which is above 
noticing the poor, or greatness that cannot 
condescend to the lowliest person or the most 
menial service that is needful. 
Centuries ago Aristotle said, " Live as nearly 
as you can the immortal life." This is wise 
and lofty counsel. There is a book called 
" The Practice of the Presence of God." The 
title is suggestive. You believe that the pres- 
ence of God is always with you, that you 
never can get where God is not. Practice 
that. Act as if you believed it, realized it. 

[ 254 ] 



Ctye practice of gimmortaltt? 

You could not do a mean thing, nor say an 
evil word, nor think an unholy thought, if 
you saw Christ beside you. You know that he 
is beside you — practice his presence. You will 
find wondrous power in this practice — power 
of restraint, of inspiration, of transforma- 
tion. That is what religion is. 
When the disciples had been on the Mount of 
Transfiguration for an hour or two, they 
wanted to stay there always and continue the 
transfiguration companionship and glory. 
But they could not do this — they had to re- 
turn to the struggles and temptations of the 
lower world. We, too, have our transfigura- 
tion visions, but they come only to give us 
new assurance and strength. We have to re- 
turn again at once to our work and our daily 
life of care. But the Master wants us always 
to live the transfiguration life, to live every 
moment as if the holy vision were shining be- 
fore our eyes. We cannot always be at the 
Holy Communion, but we are to carry the 
communion fact and spirit with us when we 
go back to our homes, to our place of busi- 

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ness, to our offices and shops and farms. 
We are to live the immortal life wherever 
we go. 

Perhaps we ought to think more of the glory 
of our lives. We do not think half enough 
of ourselves — of our greatness, of the glory 
of our being, of the divineness of our des- 
tiny. It is not self-conceit in which we are de- 
ficient — there is enough of that hateful thing 
in the most of us-; — not self-conceit, but self- 
honoring, self-reverencing. Not many of us 
honor and reverence ourselves as we should 
do. Perhaps the greatness of our being is not 
often enough impressed upon us. We are not 
accustomed to think of the splendor of our 
nature. We were made in the image of God. 
The old Psalm says that " Man was made 
only a little lower than the angels." The Re- 
vised Version changes this, however, and 
makes it read, " but little lower than God." 
Jesus said that a man is worth more than 
this whole great world, and that anyone, 
even the lowliest, would make a bad bargain 
if he sold himself for the whole world. 

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C^e practice of fmmottaltt^ 

Now what are you doing with this glorious 
life of yours? The beloved disciple in one of 
his letters says, " Beloved, now are we chil- 
dren of God. 55 That is the first glory. That 
surely is great glory. But there is more of 
the honor. It is not yet made manifest clearly 
and fully what we shall be — the future is 
veiled in mystery — but " we shall be like 
him " — that is the final glory. We shall be 
like Christ in our heavenly life. Then the 
writer tells us how we should live in this world 
if this is to be our future distinction. " Every 
one that hath this hope set on him purifieth 
himself, even as he is pure." It is pitiful how 
men throw away their crowns. Made only a 
little lower than God, children of God, des- 
tined to be like Christ at length, they yield 
to appetite, lust, and passion, and debase 
themselves in the dust. With this glory set 
before us, we should keep ourselves pure and 
our lives white, and should strive even here to 
reach up to the honor that is prepared for 
us. 

[257] 



looking anto fl&e 9am 



[259] 



11 Lord, when I look on high, 
Clouds only meet my sight ; 
Fears deepen with the night , 
But yet it is thy sky. 
Help me to trust thee, then, I pray, 
Wait in the dark and tearfully obey" 



[260] 



CHAPTER NINETEENTH 



loofefng ftnto t^e I^US 




E ought to learn to look 
up. Many people dwarf 
their lives and hinder the 
best possibilities of growth 
in their souls by looking 
downward. They keep their 
eyes entangled ever in mere earthly sights and 
scenes, and miss seeing the glory of the hills 
that pierce the clouds, and of the heavens 
that bend over them. We grow in the direc- 
tion in which our eyes habitually turn. We 
become like that toward which we look much 
and intently. 

Yet there are those who never look upward at 
all. They never see anything but the things 
that are on the earth. They never see the 
stars. They never think of God. They do not 
pray. They have no place in their scheme of 
life for divine things. 

There are two conceptions of the universe — 

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C^e dffate beautiful 



the scientific and the religious. Sir Oliver 
Lodge says : " Orthodox modern science shows 
us a self-contained and self-sufficient universe, 
not in touch with anything above and beyond 
itself. . . . Religion, on the other hand, re- 
quires us constantly and consciously to be in 
touch, even affectionately in touch, with a 
power, a mind, a being, or beings, entirely 
out of our sphere, entirely beyond our scien- 
tific ken. The universe contemplated by re- 
ligion is by no means self-contained or self- 
sufficient — it is as dependent for its origin 
and maintenance as we are for our daily 
bread upon the power and the good will of 
a being or beings of which science has no 
knowledge." 

The latter of these conceptions of the world 
is the one that the Bible gives. This is our 
Father's world. He made it, he sustains it, 
he lives in it, all its affairs are in his hands. 
One of the Psalms gives us this devout 
thought of life : " I will lift up mine eyes 
unto the mountains." It was to God that the 
poet looked. The mountains are a symbol of 

[ 262 ] 



God. The writer says also, " My help cometh 
from the Lord." The minuteness of the divine 
keeping is beautifully brought out in the 
Psalm. " He will not suffer thy foot to be 
moved." On mountain paths a great disaster 
may result from the slipping of a foot. Many 
a life has been lost by a misstep among the 
crags. But God's keeping extends even to the 
feet of his children. 

There is another assurance of exquisite 
beauty in the Psalm. No human love can 
watch over a friend unintermittingly. The 
most devoted mother sometimes sleeps by her 
suffering child. But there is an Eye that 
never closes, that always watches. The whole 
Psalm shows the safety of those who lift up 
their eyes unto the hills. They are kept from 
all evil. They are guarded when they go out 
and when they come in. We never can get 
away from the divine keeping unless we give 
up God and go out into sin. The greatest 
mistake anyone can make is to leave God out 
of his faith and out of his life. 
To those who live thoughtfully life is full of 

[263] 



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God. Even if there were no assurances in the 
Bible, telling us of his love, no promises of his 
care, common daily providence is so full of 
God that a thoughtful person could not doubt 
his existence or his care for his children. God 
is the most real Friend in all the world, 
though we have never seen him. We can see 
his footprints everywhere. We find evidences 
of his love, his interest, his kindness, in peo- 
ple's lives all about us. If one says he has 
never seen God, he has at least seen God's 
faithfulness, evidences of his love, his interest. 
We may not hear his answer in words when 
we talk to him in prayer, but we see the an- 
swer in what he does to bless us. 
Some time since two men met on a vessel cross- 
ing the Atlantic. They soon discovered that 
they had both been in the American Civil 
War, one fighting with the North, the other 
with the South. They discovered, too, that 
they had taken part, on one occasion, in the 
same battle. Then this incident came out as 
they talked together reminiscently. One night 
the Northern soldier was on sentry duty on 

[ 264 ] 



JLoofeing Onto t^e WU& 

one side of a little river, and the Southern 
soldier was a sharpshooter just across the 
river, picking off soldiers on the other side 
at every opportunity. The sentry was sing- 
ing softly, " Jesus, Lover of my Soul," as he 
kept his watch, and the words of the old hymn 
were heard in the still night over the stream. 
The sharpshooter was taking aim and was 
about to fire on the sentry. Just then he 
heard the words, " Cover my defenseless head 
with the shadow of thy wing." His rifle 
dropped — he dare not shoot a man praying 
that prayer. " I could as soon have shot my 
own mother," he said. Was not God in this 
whole incident? Was he not a reality that 
night? We need not ask why no one has ever 
seen God. Lift up your eyes unto the moun- 
tains in every time of need, and God will 
always help. 

Every Christian should train himself always 
to look up. Some people look down continu- 
ally, watching for thorns and briars. They 
never see anything in life but the unpleasant 
things. They are always looking for troubles. 

[265] 



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They find them, too, on the brightest days, in 
the loveliest places. They never see anything 
beautiful. But that is not the way to go 
through life. Lift up your eyes and look for 
roses, not for thorns. Once when a voice was 
speaking to Jesus, some people said it thun- 
dered, while others said an angel spoke to 
him. So it is always with people — some never 
hear anything but thunder. They think peo- 
ple are all like snarling wild beasts. They do 
not love anybody, nor trust anybody, nor 
care for anybody. They hear only discords, 
wolf notes. They do not believe in people, 
even the best of them. To them all men are 
liars, thieves, robbers. They claim that all 
Christians are hypocrites, all merchants dis- 
honest, all homes bedlams, that nobody is 
pure, and nobody is unselfish. Can you think 
of any other way of making one's life miser- 
able that equals this? Rather, lift up your 
eyes unto the hills, where the air is sweet, the 
light clear, the music like angels' songs. This 
will change all the world for you. Of course 
there are discordant notes in the music of a 

[266] 



Loofeiug anto t^e fill* 

great city where throngs are surging all 
about. But why should we hear the discords 
when there is so much sweet music in life to 
be heard everywhere? We are exhorted to 
overcome evil with good, bitter with sweet, 
sorrow with joy, hate with love. 
Lift up your eyes unto the hills when you 
think of your own circumstances. They may 
not seem bright or hopeful. You hear people 
talk about the sore troubles they have. There 
always are difficulties, discouragements, disap- 
pointments, and we can easily find them when 
we look for them. But can you not train 
yourself instead to find something good, 
something beautiful, something cheering, and 
inspiring? There always is at least a gleam 
of light in even the darkest night. When 
the little dog, lying in the parlor upon a chill 
day, saw a spot of sunshine on the floor, he 
was wise to leave his cold corner and go and 
lie down in it. His was good philosophy for a 
dog, and good also for a man. If there is 
only one spot of happiness in all your little 
world, find it and set your chair in it. 

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Some one tells of a poor crippled shoemaker 
who never could go out anywhere. His little 
shop was in the heart of the great city, with 
houses on all sides of the poor place where he 
lived, shutting out every beautiful sight, with 
no sky visible from his little window, with not 
a hint of life to be seen. But one day he dis- 
covered that from a certain place in the shop 
he could catch a mere glimpse of blue sky. 
He set his shoemaker's bench right there, so 
that while he cobbled away, he could lift up 
his eyes at every resting moment and see the 
bit of beauty. How it brightened his dreary 
life ! There is some point in the hardest ex- 
perience in your life where something of 
heaven may be seen. Find it and set your 
stool there. 

We do not begin to know how true it is that 
we make our own world. The sunshine we see 
about us daily is in ourselves. It shines out 
from within us. We are not to go about de- 
manding that others shine on us, on our field, 
and on our home. We are not to blame other 
people when we are peevish, fretful, discon- 

[268] 



Loosing anto tyt fills 

tented, or touchy. A great teacher said, 
" When things go wrong, don't blame some- 
body else ; blame yourself." It is usually our 
own fault that we are not happy. Even if 
people do not treat us as they should do, if 
they are unjust to us, unkind, disobliging, 
selfish, exacting, that will not make it either 
right or beautiful for us to grow unhappy, 
or to go about sour and sad. We should never 
allow anybody, any circumstances, or any- 
thing that happens to spoil our life. We 
ought to resolve to keep sweet whatever the 
circumstances may be. That is what being a 
Christian means. That is what it is to lift up 
our eyes unto the hills. If we are looking to 
God, we cannot do mean things, we cannot lie, 
we cannot be selfish, grasping, or greedy, 
whatever the provocation may be. If we truly 
lift up our eyes unto God, we will get some- 
thing of God's beauty into our soul, will be- 
come imbued with God's holiness, God's truth, 
God's love, and get grace enough to enable us 
to live the Christlike life. 
The mountains are places of strength. They 

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C^e (Bate 13eautiful 



cannot be moved. They are stable and sure. 
They are places of safety. They are away 
above the floods and dangers of earth. The 
higher our life rises, the safer it is. The 
power of temptation grows less and less as we 
go up nearer to Christ. Our faults, infirmi- 
ties, vices, lose their power over us as we rise 
up into the mountain air — they will choke 
and die there. It is said that telescopes have 
detected birds flying six miles above the earth. 
How safe they are up there! No arrow can 
reach them. No enemy can find them. The 
same is true of the soul that flies far above — 
no trapper can catch it, no tempter can reach 
it. The mountains are places of safety. 
The mountains are places of peace. There is 
a point in the heavens, above the clouds, 
where no storm ever blows, where no tempest 
ever breaks. If we rise into these calm, holy 
heights, we shall find peace. An ancient leg- 
end relates that every morning at sunrise a 
handful of dew fell from Mount Hermon 
upon the church of St. Mary, where at once 
it was gathered by the Christian physicians 

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looking Onto t^e f ilijs 

and proved a sovereign remedy for all manner 
of diseases. This dew from the sacred moun- 
tain represents the love of Christ which comes 
down perpetually from heaven, which not 
only nourishes the lives of men but also heals 
all diseases. 



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Bo ptimlt, "But potter 



[273] 



11 If we sit down at set of sun 
And count the things that we have done, 

And counting, find 
One self-denying act, one word 
That eased the heart of him who heard, 

One glance most kind 
That fell like sunshine where it went, 
Then we may count that day well spent. 

" But, if through all the livelong day, 
We've eased no heart by yea or nay, 

If, through it all, 
We've nothing done that we can trace 
That brought the sunshine to a face ; 

No act most small, 
That helped some soul and nothing cost, 
Then count that day as worse than lost." 



[274] 



CHAPTER TWENTIETH 

i 

0o piimtt, I3ut ptfmv 




T is said of John the Bap- 
tist that he did no miracles, 
but that all he said about 
Christ was true. Therefore 
one may not be a miracle 
worker, and yet may be 
very useful. Perhaps we think that most of 
the things of love and mercy which Jesus did 
were miracles. He had divine power, and 
many of his works were supernatural. He 
showed his power over nature when he made 
the water wine, when he stilled the stormy sea, 
when he multiplied the loaves. He showed his 
power over sickness and disease when he 
healed all manner of human ailments. He 
showed his power over demons when he cast 
them out of those in whom they were living. 
He showed his power over the Tempter when 
he vanquished him in the wilderness. He 
showed his power over death when he rose 

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C^e d&ate beautiful 



from the grave. We may not make little of 
Christ's miracles — he did many things which 
no man could do. 

An English preacher tells of a visit paid by a 
party of Americans to the wonderful royal 
grapevine at Hampton Court. It hung full of 
rich summer clusters. One of the party asked 
the keeper, " Could you not give us a few of 
those grapes?" The keeper replied cour- 
teously, " There is only one man in the king- 
dom, sir, who could give you grapes from this 
vine." "And who is he?" the visitor in- 
quired. " His Majesty, the King," was the 
answer. There are things which only the King 
can do. There are blessings which only Christ 
can bestow. There are fruits of grace which 
you can receive from no hand but his. His 
miracles were wonderful. 

Yet only a small proportion of the things 
Jesus did were unusual, supernatural ; ninety- 
nine hundredths of his acts were simple, com- 
mon kindnesses which it did not need divinity 
to perform. His words were all gracious and 
inspiring. He wrought only one miracle in 

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$0 ittitacle, I3ut ^otoet: 

the Bethany home, but in his frequent visits, 
sitting with the family by the hearth, or at 
the table, talking with them in the quiet even- 
ings, walking with them in the garden, shar- 
ing with them the tender things of friendship 
and affection, there must have been in their 
hearts ever after a thousand memories of his 
love which made his name sacred to them, be- 
sides the memory of his raising of Lazarus. 
It was so in all Christ's life — there were a 
few miracles, showing divine power in marked 
and undoubted way; there were countless 
revealings of kindness, gentleness, sympathy, 
thoughtfulness, encouragement, mere com- 
mon kindnesses, which were as full of God 
as the miracles. 

When Jesus said to Philip, " Have I been so 
long time with you, and dost thou not know 
me? He that hath seen me hath seen the 
Father," he did not refer merely to the mir- 
acles he had wrought — there was quite as 
much of the Father revealed in his everyday 
life with his friends — his unbroken peace, his 
never- failing patience, his abounding joy, 

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in his gracious helpfulness every moment, as 
in his great signs. 

Indeed the Incarnation itself was just the 
coming of God down out of invisible glory, 
into common human life, revealing himself in 
simple, homely ways that we might under- 
stand him, that he might get close to us, that 
we might come close to him, that we might 
know him intimately and familiarly. It was in 
Christ's most human ways that the disciples 
saw most of God. His miracles dazzled their 
eyes and awed them. Mary could not have 
sat at his feet and listened calmly to his words 
if he had appeared transfigured. John could 
not have leaned on his breast at supper, rest- 
fully and quietly, if glory had been shining 
in his face. Christ's deepest revealings to us 
are made in humanest ways. A writer in The 
Outlook puts it thus: 

They bade me lift my eyes to thee, who art great 

Lord and King, 
Enthroned above the cherubim, who praise eternal 

sing. 

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0o jftfracle, I3ut ptrtott 

And eagerly I gazed above, as other mortals dare : 
Such radiant light was all too bright — / could not 

find thee there. 
And blinded, and with downcast eyes, I scarcely 

saw the man 
Who walked beside me on my way, though close 

our pathways ran. 
No pomp, no kingly pride was there : his footsteps 

pressed the road ; 
A staff like mine was in his hand ; his shoulders 

bore their load. 
One day I turned and saw his face — the pitying, 

human brow ; 
"Brother," he said, with outstretched hand ; and 

I, "Why, this is thou!" 

The same is true of others as well as of the 
Master. One may be a true witness for Christ 
and yet not be a worker of miracles. Or to 
bring it into the language of every day, one 
may not be brilliant, may not be eloquent, 
may not do great or conspicuous things, and 
yet may do much worthy and blessed service 
for the Master and for men. Many people are 
hero worshipers. They admire and magnify 

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€^e d^ate beautiful 



the work done by the miracle workers. The 
popular preacher wins attention by his elo- 
quence, and everybody praises him. Mean- 
while, plain, commonplace preachers toil away 
in obscurity, not drawing crowds to hear 
them, not winning commendation, never men- 
tioned in the newspapers. Yet they go about, 
seven days in the week, giving out their lives 
in all manner of kindly service to men. Their 
lives are full of self-denials. They carry bene- 
dictions into people's homes. They pray be- 
side sick beds and comfort mourners. They 
carry their people in their hearts and are 
friends to the needy, the poor, the children. 
They are not eloquent, and no one praises 
their public ministry, and yet they may be ten 
times the blessing in the world the brilliant 
orators are. They do no miracles, but they 
are Christ's beloved servants, messengers of 
his love to the world. 

It is the same in all callings. There are those 
who do spectacular things, and people praise 
them, follow them, almost worship them. 
There are certain persons who do good in un- 

[ 280] 



0o piimlt, I3ut potozv 

usual ways. They are benevolent, and are 
known everywhere as great givers. The tend- 
ency is to pay a great deal of honor to these 
miracle workers. Perhaps the honor is not 
too great, not more than they deserve. We 
must not envy those who do great and beau- 
tiful things and get much praise of men. 
But meanwhile there is a great multitude of 
people who are not brilliant, not eloquent, 
who do no unusual or striking things, but 
who are among the most useful persons in the 
community where they live. They do no mir- 
acles, but their lives are full of blessing. 
Indeed, the fact that a person works quietly, 
without noise, without fame, never doing any- 
thing startling or sensational, may indicate 
greatness rather than smallness. It is easier to 
work amidst cheers and huzzas than in obscur- 
ity, where one never hears a commendation. 
A writer says, " One test of the religious life 
is in its willingness to occupy a subordinate 
place and to work faithfully in it." The story 
is told of a young man who was president of 
a young people's organization, and who 

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C^e dBate OBeauttful 



greatly liked prominence. He had a genius 
for keeping always in the limelight. As long 
as he could lead and be prominent he was 
happy, cheerful, enthusiastic and interested. 
But when he was not in some conspicuous 
position he was not a comfortable man to get 
along with. One of his friends described and 
characterized him thus : " He has plenty of 
religion to lead, but not enough to follow." 
There always are good people of this type. 
They work splendidly when they are in a con- 
spicuous place, with others under them, but 
when they are second or down somewhere in 
the common ranks, they are of little use. It 
takes more grace to shine in the lowly places 
than in places of prominence. 
In the immortal Thirteenth of First Corin- 
thians St. Paul draws a distinction between 
the miracle workers and those who do no mir- 
acle. " If I speak with the tongues of men 
and of angels, but have not love, I am become 
sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. And 
if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all 
mysteries and all knowledge ; and if I have all 

[ 282 ] 



$o Jttiracle, "But pcfmv 

faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not 
love, I am nothing. And if I bestow all my 
goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body 
to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth 
me nothing." Here we have a list of miracles 
— speaking with the tongues of men and 
angels, having great knowledge, having faith, 
that can do impossible things, giving away 
millions, devoting one's body in martyrdom. 
But all these miracles of attainment and 
achievement in themselves amount to nothing. 
In striking contrast with these conspicuous 
things St. Paul sets love. Love does no mir- 
acle, it is lowly, humble, hiding away from 
observation, desiring no praise, vaunting not 
itself, seeking not its own, and yet it is hon- 
ored in heaven and blessed on the earth far 
above the startling miracles of genius and 
brilliancy which lack love. 
It is fitting that we sing the praise of the 
lowly who love and serve without fame, with- 
out noise, ofttimes even without appreciation. 
It was thus that Jesus himself lived and 
wrought. He never did anything to get peo- 

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C^e (Bate beautiful 



pie's praise. He wrought many miracles, but 
never one to make a sensation. His were all 
miracles of love, of kindness. He never adver- 
tised himself. He worked quietly, without a 
wish to gain fame. All that came into his 
presence were better for meeting him — life 
meant more to them ever after. But he worked 
without noise. His influence was like the dew 
that is forgotten but leaves refreshing and 
benediction everywhere. 

Think of the mothers, the mothers who live 
with their children and for them. They do no 
miracles, but their hands are ever performing 
the homely things of love. Think of the great 
company of Christian men and women who 
are plain and commonplace in their lives, who 
are not known beyond the little circle in which 
they live, who have no earthly honor and who 
" leave no memory but a world made better 
by their lives." They do no miracles, but 
their names are known in heaven. Angels are 
familiar with their deeds. God is honored by 
their noble lives. 

So we do not have to do great and startling 

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$0 Jftiracle, QBut potoer 

things to make our lives impressive and un- 
usual. We do not have to do miracles in order 
to commend Christ to others. We may not be 
able to do anything great or startling. We 
cannot give much money. We cannot speak 
eloquently. We cannot go as missionaries. 
Some people have the impression that be- 
cause they cannot do miracles of service, 
they cannot do anything to add to the 
honor of Christ's name. But the smallest 
beautiful thing we do for Christ makes him 
a little more glorious as men see him. A 
preacher went back after forty years to the 
college from which he had been graduated 
and spoke one Sunday to the students. He 
talked to them of the kind of friend Christ 
would be to them. At the close of the sermon 
he said, " I have tried to speak a good word 
to-day for Jesus Christ." That is what we 
should try to do every day — say a good word 
for our Master. 

Be good, though you cannot be great. Live 
sweetly, though you cannot live brilliantly. 
Do well your lowly tasks wherever you are. 

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Never long for honor, for praise of the world, 
for distinction among men. Live for the eye 
of Christ and to make people better and hap- 
pier. Show no discontent with your quiet, ob- 
scure lot. Envy no one who does things that 
men praise while you are unpraised. The 
noblest life is the one that puts a little glory 
on the name of Christ and makes some other 
human being a little better, truer, more wor- 
thy. It is enough for any day if you say in 
some ear a good word for Jesus Christ. 



[286] 



C^e mm of ti&e lord 



[287] 



Do the work that's nearest, 
Though it's dull at whiles, 
Helping when you meet them 
Lame dogs over stiles, 
See in every hedgerow 
Marks of angels' feet, 
Epics in each pebble 
Underneath our feet" 



[ 288 ] 



CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST 

%ty Woth of t^e lot* 




AST summer at Lake Mo- 
honk the guests would 
gather on the west porch 
every evening to watch the 
sunset. It was always won- 
derful. When the sun had 
sunk out of sight there would frequently be a 
marvelous afterglow. But the splendor did not 
last long. While we watched, it faded. While 
the wondrous beauty was in the heavens, 
groups of earnest people sat on the porches 
and in the parlors talking quietly of matters 
that interested them. They were not conscious 
of making impressions on each other by the 
words they were speaking. But touches were 
put upon lives in those conversations which 
never shall fade out. We are always impress- 
ing other lives. The touches of beauty which 
the mother puts into a child's life in her home 
will never fade. The influences of friendship 

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C^e d&ate beautiful 



are immortal. It is diviner work which we do 
upon each other's lives in our common min- 
gling together than if we could help God 
paint clouds in the skies. 
In one sense all the work we are ever called to 
do is work of the Lord — the affairs of busi- 
ness, the housekeeper's tasks, the mechanic's 
labors. Jesus said at the age of twelve that 
he must be about his Father's business. Then 
for eighteen years he did the common tasks of 
a boy at home and worked in the carpenter's 
shop. All this lowly, common work was his 
Father's business. 

In a more definite sense, the work of the Lord 
is what we do in the church, and through the 
church. The young man who joins a church 
becomes a partner with all fellow church-mem- 
bers and is assigned to some particular place 
and duty. The young woman who becomes a 
Christian enters the kingdom of Christ and 
has her part to do in the Father's business. 
She is not merely a boarder — she is one of 
the family, and there is nothing in the house- 
hold of God that does not concern her. 

[ 290 ] 



€$e Wotk of tye lot* 

The mission of the church is to save the 
world. We are to do good to men in every 
possible way. When two young people love 
each other and enter into the marriage rela- 
tion, starting a home of their own, they want 
to be happy. They build their nest primarily 
for their own enjoyment. But if they love 
Christ, they have a wider desire and purpose 
— they want their home to become a center of 
blessing. They want to make one little spot 
about them brighter, sweeter, purer, gladder, 
better, in every way. Dean Stanley says, 
" Each of us is bound to make the small cir- 
cle in which he lives better and happier ; each 
of us is bound to see that out of that small 
circle the widest good may flow." The home 
you build only for yourself, to shut out the 
cold and roughness only from you and your 
household, to shelter you and yours alone 
from the storm, to be a little refuge for self- 
ishness, is not a home at all. Only love can 
make a home, and love is always unselfish, al- 
ways thinks of others, always seeks to share 
its best with those who lack. 

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This principle runs through all phases of 
Christian life. We are to conduct our business 
not only to make a living for ourselves and 
our household, but also to make our com- 
munity more prosperous and more attractive. 
We are to seek the good of our neighborhood 
in every way. A good Christian should al- 
ways be a public-spirited citizen. He who 
plants a tree or a row of trees before his 
house is doing something which will be a 
blessing to his neighbors. The woman who 
has her little garden, if only five feet square, 
or who has but her window box filled with 
flowers, makes the world a little brighter. Re- 
ligion thinks always of others and seeks to 
make the place in which one lives brighter and 
sweeter. 

It is not enough for us to be good — we must 
also do good. This means, first, that we are 
to be on the side of every good cause, of 
every true reform, of every effort to drive out 
evil from the community. Whatever concerns 
the good of men, the safeguarding and sweet- 
ening of our homes, the protection of our 

[ 292 ] 



%ty Wovk of tye lot* 

children, the upbuilding of the kingdom of 
God among us is part of the work of the 
Lord. " The gospel must concern itself with 
impure politics, with dishonest commercialism, 
and with improper marital relations. It is a 
dwarfed, unmanly, unchristian gospel which 
refuses to put on its armor and fight for truth 
and God." It ought never to need inquiry or 
investigation to find out where a Christian 
stands regarding any moral question or re- 
form. 

To be engaged in the work of the Lord means, 
also, that we are always to be doing good in 
practical ways. What was Jesus Christ in the 
place he lived? What was his attitude toward 
the needs of the people? What did he think 
of the suffering about him, and what did he 
do to relieve it? Where did he stand regard- 
ing the wrongs and oppressions of the peo- 
ple? Did he care when he saw the poor de- 
spised, the weak crushed, the laborer robbed 
of his wages? Did he look with indifference 
on the sorrowing, the bereft, the lonely, the 
tempted, the misled, the unled, children beaten 

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and abused, widows and orphans the victims 
of man's greed and avarice ? 
The story of Christ in the Gospels answers 
these questions. The ideal church should be 
as Christ himself living in the place where the 
church stands., To be abounding in the work 
of the Lord is to be the friend of men, a 
refuge for the storm-tossed, a shelter for the 
unsheltered, a comforter of sorrow, a succorer 
of the tempted. 

" Quit you like men, be strong : 
There's a burden to bear, 
There's a grief to share, 

There's a heart that breaks 'neath a load of care — 
But fare ye forth with a song. 

" Quit you like men, be strong : 
There's a battle to fight, 
There's a wrong to right, 

There's a God who blesses the good with might — 
So fare ye forth with a song." 

There is a call to-day for a higher type of 
Christian conduct and character, for a diviner 

[294] 



C^e Wotih of t^e lotD 

conception of the duties of church-member- 
ship than has ever yet been realized. The 
world is growing better every day. Such 
achievements of Christianity as we are now 
witnessing were never witnessed before. Re- 
cent years have marked the rising of a loft- 
ier sentiment regarding public and private 
morals than was ever before felt. Bad as 
much in our politics undoubtedly is, there are 
foretokens of a better day coming. There are 
indications that commercialism is being born 
again. This is not saying that politicians, 
railroad kings, captains of industry, and 
statesmen and leaders of finance are becoming 
saints ; it is saying, however, that the religion 
of Christ is at work with mighty, resistless 
energy in all the world's life and that out of 
the travail of souls the new birth of a better 
righteousness is coming. 

Never was so much demanded of Christian 
men and women as to-day. Those who profess 
to live religiously are now in the fierce light 
of public sentiment as never before. We must 
prove our faith and our creed by a life that is 

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worthy and true. It is life itself that makes 
the deepest impression upon men, not mere 
profession. Our unconscious influence is a tre- 
mendous factor in our life. No one lives to 
himself alone. Have you ever thought of what 
other people's lives mean to you, how they 
impress you, how you are sometimes kept 
from giving up by the example of another 
man who does not give up, how you are saved 
sometimes from falling by another person's 
belief in you? A young man said the other 
day, referring to the young woman he ex- 
pected to marry : " I would not dare do a 
mean thing, an unworthy thing, while I call 
her my friend. She never preaches to me, she 
never says a word about what I do, but her 
life is so beautiful, so spotless, so true, so 
strong, that I could not consciously do any- 
thing wrong and look into her face after- 
ward. She believes in me, and her belief in 
me compels me to strive to be what she thinks 
I am." 

There is many a man out in the midst of the 
fierce struggles of life who is holding firmly 

[296] 



C^e Wotb of t^e lott) 

to the true and the right and keeping his feet 
in the clean path of honor and faithfulness, 
because some quiet, noble friend believes in 
him and expects him to be loyal and strong. 
He could never look into the face of this 
friend if he failed or faltered. When others 
believe that we will be true we must be true. 
When worthy friends are confident of our 
power, know that w r e can accomplish certain 
results, reach certain ends, their faith in us 
compels us to be true and do our best. 
It is a great thing to be believed in. We 
should ever keep in mind the influence on 
others of our faith or our belief in them. We 
do not begin to realize how it weakens the 
faith of others about us to have us who are 
Christians lose heart, show the white feather, 
in some time of testing. Nor can we ever 
know how it cheers others and makes them 
brave to have us keep brave. If you have a 
friend carrying a heavy burden, or waging a 
hard battle and growing faint and discour- 
aged, you must be careful lest something you 
do, or some word you say shall cause him to 

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give up and sink down. Do not for the world 
say a timid word then, a word sympathizing 
with his discouragement. You must speak 
courageously, inspiringly, then. You have 
your friend's success or failure in your hand. 
To be a discourager in such an hour would 
be a crime against love. 

" Turn to the world a courage brave, 
There is some one you may inspire." 

Part of the work of the Lord always is the 
guardianship of other lives. Of course this is 
true of parents and the children committed to 
them, also of teachers and the young lives 
that are intrusted to them. But it is true also 
in the widest way. When we have a friend, 
the friend's life is in our keeping, in a deeper 
sense than we dream. We must beware that 
never by a word, by a touch, by an act, by an 
influence, we harm or weaken our friend's life, 
or in any way misdirect him. We must be sure 
that we always shelter, guard, keep inalien- 
ably and inspire the life committed to us. 

[298] 



W$z Wotb of ti&e Lotto 

A business man who employs a number of 
young persons has a responsibility for them 
far beyond the paying of their weekly salaries 
and the providing of physical safety and 
comfort for them while they are at work for 
him. He is responsible also for the moral en- 
vironment he sets about them, the influences 
amidst which he places them. The same is true 
of all who become in any way the caretakers 
of others. We are responsible to the full ex- 
tent of our ability for the keeping, the pro- 
tection from harm and the advancement of 
the interests of all who are thus intrusted 
to us. 

" Keep this man," was the charge ; " if by any 
means he be missing, then shall thy life be for 
his life." Later, the man reports, " As thy 
servant was busy here and there, he was 
gone." It is thus that God is continually 
putting others into our care, bidding us keep 
them, guard them, influence them for good. 
Are we faithful to our trust? There is not 
one of us without some such responsibility. 
God is always sending people to us in provi- 

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€tye d5ate QBeauttfui 



dential ways. We do not know why they come 
to us, why they pass within the range of our 
influence. But in whatever way they are sent 
to us we have some errand to them. They may 
need our sympathy, our encouragement, our 
comfort, our protection, the influence of our 
friendship. Let us be careful lest while we 
are busy here and there they are gone without 
having received from us the help, the blessing, 
the influence which God intended us to give 
them. 



[ 300] 



Am 31 1909 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Oct. 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

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